Downlink user equipment selection

ABSTRACT

Aspects of the disclosure relate to a selection scheme implemented by a scheduler in a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) network to identify which users to schedule simultaneously during the same time slot. For downlink communications and a particular frequency wholeband or sub-band, the scheduler can determine downlink channel information using uplink channel information for channels between base stations and UEs. The scheduler can then determine a strength of the channels using the downlink channel information, order the UEs using a fairness metric based on the channel strengths, and compute one or more QR decompositions to identify whether a spatial dimension of a UE is roughly or approximately orthogonal to spatial dimension(s) of other UEs selected to be served during a time slot being scheduled. If the spatial dimensions are roughly or approximately orthogonal, the scheduler selects the UE to be served at the same time as other UEs already selected.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.16/397,954, entitled “DOWNLINK USER EQUIPMENT SELECTION” and filed onApr. 29, 2019, the entire disclosure of which is hereby incorporated byreference herein.

BACKGROUND Technical Field

Embodiments of this disclosure relate to wireless communication systems,such as cooperative multiple-input multiple output wirelesscommunication systems.

Description of Related Technology

The types of modern computing devices continues to increase along withthe differing and dynamic needs of each device. The wirelesscommunication systems providing services to such devices are facingincreasing constraints on resources and demands for quality andquantities of service. Accordingly, improvements in providing wirelesscommunication services, such as in a multiple-input multiple-outputsystem, are desired.

SUMMARY

One aspect of the disclosure provides a network system comprising aplurality of transmit antenna elements of one or more serving nodes. Thenetwork system further comprises a scheduler in communication with theplurality of transmit antenna elements, the scheduler comprising aprocessor and computer-executable instructions, where thecomputer-executable instructions, when executed by the processor, causethe scheduler to: determine downlink channel information for channelsbetween a plurality of receive antenna elements associated with aplurality of user equipment (UEs) and the plurality of transmit antennaelements; determine, for each receive antenna element in the plurality,a channel strength based on the downlink channel information; order theplurality of receive antenna elements based on the determined channelstrengths; and in order from highest-ordered receive antenna element tolowest-ordered receive antenna element, select the respective receiveantenna element to be served by one or more of the plurality of transmitantenna elements during a first time slot in response to a determinationthat: a measurement that represents a spatial orthogonality between therespective receive antenna element and one or more spatial elements ofone or more other receive antenna elements in the plurality selected tobe served by one or more of the plurality of transmit antenna elementsis greater than a threshold value, and a number of spatial dimensionsprovided by one or more receive antenna elements in the pluralityselected to be served by one or more of the plurality of transmitantenna elements does not exceed a number of transmit antenna elementsin the plurality of transmit antenna elements.

The network system of the preceding paragraph can include anysub-combination of the following features: where the computer-executableinstructions, when executed, further cause the scheduler to determinethe threshold value based on channel coefficients of a channelassociated with the highest-ordered receive antenna element; where thecomputer-executable instructions, when executed, further cause thescheduler to determine the threshold value based on a constant valuethat is the same for all receive antenna elements in the plurality;where the computer-executable instructions, when executed, further causethe scheduler to periodically determine the threshold value based on aconstant value that changes based on a block error rate performanceassociated with at least one receive antenna element in the plurality;where the computer-executable instructions, when executed, further causethe scheduler to determine the threshold value based on a constant valuethat is different for receive antenna elements in the plurality; wherethe constant value for a first receive antenna element in the pluralityof receive antenna elements is based on interference between the firstreceive antenna element and one or more other receive antenna elementsin the plurality; where the computer-executable instructions, whenexecuted, further cause the scheduler to: acquire uplink channelinformation for the channels, and determine the downlink channelinformation using the acquired uplink channel information; where thecomputer-executable instructions, when executed, further cause thescheduler to order the plurality of receive antenna elements based on atleast one of the determined channel strengths, latency priority,spectral efficiency, average throughput of the plurality of receiveantenna elements over a threshold period of time, or normalizedthroughput of the plurality of receive antenna elements over thethreshold period of time; where the computer-executable instructions,when executed, further cause the scheduler to determine a downlinkchannel precoder for the selected receive antenna elements; and wherethe computer-executable instructions, when executed, further cause thescheduler to select the respective receive antenna element to be servedby one or more of the plurality of transmit antenna elements for one ofa resource block, two or more resource blocks, or a frequency band of acarrier.

Another aspect of the disclosure provides a computer-implemented methodcomprising: determining downlink channel information for channelsbetween a plurality of receive antenna elements associated with aplurality of user equipment (UEs) and a plurality of transmit antennaelements associated with a plurality of serving nodes; determining, foreach receive antenna element in the plurality, a channel strength basedon the downlink channel information; ordering the plurality of receiveantenna elements based on the determined channel strengths; and in orderfrom highest-ordered receive antenna element to lowest-ordered receiveantenna element, selecting the respective receive antenna element to beserved by one or more of the plurality of transmit antenna elementsduring a first time slot in response to a determination that ameasurement that represents a spatial orthogonality between therespective receive antenna element and one or more spatial elements ofone or more other receive antenna elements in the plurality selected tobe served by one or more of the plurality of transmit antenna elementsis greater than a threshold value.

The computer-implemented method of the preceding paragraph can includeany sub-combination of the following features: where thecomputer-implemented method further comprises determining the thresholdvalue based on channel coefficients of a channel associated with thehighest-ordered receive antenna element; where determining the thresholdvalue further comprises determining the threshold value based on aconstant value that is the same for all receive antenna elements in theplurality; where determining the threshold value further comprisesperiodically determining the threshold value based on a constant valuethat changes based on a block error rate performance associated with atleast one receive antenna element in the plurality; where determiningthe threshold value further comprises determining the threshold valuebased on a constant value that is different for receive antenna elementsin the plurality; where the constant value for a first receive antennaelement in the plurality of receive antenna elements is based oninterference between the first receive antenna element and one or moreother receive antenna elements in the plurality; where determiningdownlink channel information further comprises: acquiring uplink channelinformation for the channels, and determining the downlink channelinformation using the acquired uplink channel information; whereordering the plurality of receive antenna elements further comprisesordering the plurality of receive antenna elements based on at least oneof the determined channel strengths, latency priority, spectralefficiency, average throughput of the plurality of receive antennaelements over a threshold period of time, or normalized throughput ofthe plurality of receive antenna elements over the threshold period oftime; and where the computer-implemented method further comprisesdetermining a downlink channel precoder for the selected receive antennaelements.

Another aspect of the disclosure provides non-transitory,computer-readable storage media comprising computer-executableinstructions, where the computer-executable instructions, when executedby a scheduler in a baseband unit, cause the baseband unit to: determinedownlink channel information for channels between a plurality of receiveantenna elements associated with a plurality of user equipment (UEs) anda plurality of transmit antenna elements associated with a plurality ofserving nodes; determine, for each receive antenna element in theplurality, a channel strength based on the downlink channel information;order the plurality of receive antenna elements based on the determinedchannel strengths; and in order from highest-ordered receive antennaelement to lowest-ordered receive antenna element, select the respectivereceive antenna element to be served by one or more of the plurality oftransmit antenna elements during a first time slot in response to adetermination that a measurement that represents a spatial orthogonalitybetween the respective receive antenna element and one or more spatialelements of one or more other receive antenna elements in the pluralityselected to be served by one or more of the plurality of transmitantenna elements satisfies a threshold value.

Another aspect of the disclosure provides a network system comprising aplurality of receive antenna elements of one or more serving nodes. Thenetwork system further comprises a scheduler in communication with theplurality of receive antenna elements, the scheduler comprising aprocessor and computer-executable instructions, where thecomputer-executable instructions, when executed by the processor, causethe scheduler to: obtain uplink channel information for channels betweenthe plurality of receive antenna elements and a plurality of transmitantenna elements associated with a plurality of user equipment (UEs);determine, for each transmit antenna element in the plurality, a channelstrength based on the uplink channel information; order the plurality oftransmit antenna elements based on the determined channel strengths; andin order from highest-ordered transmit antenna element to lowest-orderedtransmit antenna element, select the respective transmit antenna elementto communicate with one or more of the plurality of receive antennaelements during a first time slot in response to a determination that: ameasurement that represents a spatial orthogonality between therespective transmit antenna element and one or more spatial elements ofone or more other transmit antenna elements in the plurality selected tocommunicate with one or more of the plurality of receive antennaelements is greater than a threshold value, and a number of spatialdimensions provided by one or more transmit antenna elements in theplurality selected to communicate with one or more of the plurality ofreceive antenna elements does not exceed a number of receive antennaelements in the plurality of receive antenna elements.

The network system of the preceding paragraph can include anysub-combination of the following features: where the computer-executableinstructions, when executed, further cause the scheduler to determinethe threshold value based on channel coefficients of a channelassociated with the highest-ordered transmit antenna element; where thecomputer-executable instructions, when executed, further cause thescheduler to determine the threshold value based on a constant valuethat is the same for all transmit antenna elements in the plurality;where the computer-executable instructions, when executed, further causethe scheduler to periodically determine the threshold value based on aconstant value that changes based on a block error rate performanceassociated with at least one transmit antenna element in the plurality;where the computer-executable instructions, when executed, further causethe scheduler to determine the threshold value based on a constant valuethat is different for transmit antenna elements in the plurality; wherethe constant value for a first transmit antenna element in the pluralityof transmit antenna elements is based on interference between the firsttransmit antenna element and one or more other transmit antenna elementsin the plurality; where the computer-executable instructions, whenexecuted, further cause the scheduler to obtain the uplink channelinformation for the channels from one or more of the plurality oftransmit antenna elements; where the computer-executable instructions,when executed, further cause the scheduler to obtain the uplink channelinformation for the channels based on one or more uplink pilot signals;where the computer-executable instructions, when executed, further causethe scheduler to order the plurality of transmit antenna elements basedon at least one of the determined channel strengths, latency priority,spectral efficiency, average throughput of the plurality of transmitantenna elements over a threshold period of time, or normalizedthroughput of the plurality of transmit antenna elements over thethreshold period of time; and where the computer-executableinstructions, when executed, further cause the scheduler to select therespective transmit antenna element to communicate with one or more ofthe plurality of receive antenna elements for one of a resource block,two or more resource blocks, or a frequency band of a carrier.

Another aspect of the disclosure provides a computer-implemented methodcomprising: obtaining uplink channel information for channels betweenthe plurality of receive antenna elements and a plurality of transmitantenna elements associated with a plurality of user equipment (UEs);determining, for each transmit antenna element in the plurality, achannel strength based on the uplink channel information; ordering theplurality of transmit antenna elements based on the determined channelstrengths; and in order from highest-ordered transmit antenna element tolowest-ordered transmit antenna element, selecting the respectivetransmit antenna element to communicate with one or more of theplurality of receive antenna elements during a first time slot inresponse to a determination that a measurement that represents a spatialorthogonality between the respective transmit antenna element and one ormore spatial elements of one or more other transmit antenna elements inthe plurality selected to communicate with one or more of the pluralityof receive antenna elements is greater than a threshold value.

The computer-implemented method of the preceding paragraph can includeany sub-combination of the following features: where thecomputer-implemented method further comprises determining the thresholdvalue based on channel coefficients of a channel associated with thehighest-ordered transmit antenna element; where determining thethreshold value further comprises determining the threshold value basedon a constant value that is the same for all transmit antenna elementsin the plurality; where determining the threshold value furthercomprises periodically determining the threshold value based on aconstant value that changes based on a block error rate performanceassociated with at least one transmit antenna element in the plurality;where determining the threshold value further comprises determining thethreshold value based on a constant value that is different for transmitantenna elements in the plurality; where the constant value for a firsttransmit antenna element in the plurality of transmit antenna elementsis based on interference between the first transmit antenna element andone or more other transmit antenna elements in the plurality; whereobtaining uplink channel information further comprises obtaining theuplink channel information for the channels from one or more of theplurality of transmit antenna elements; where obtaining uplink channelinformation further comprises obtaining the uplink channel informationfor the channels based on one or more uplink pilot signals; and whereordering the plurality of transmit antenna elements ordering theplurality of transmit antenna elements based on at least one of thedetermined channel strengths, latency priority, spectral efficiency,average throughput of the plurality of transmit antenna elements over athreshold period of time, or normalized throughput of the plurality oftransmit antenna elements over the threshold period of time.

Another aspect of the disclosure provides non-transitory,computer-readable storage media comprising computer-executableinstructions, where the computer-executable instructions, when executedby a scheduler in a baseband unit, cause the baseband unit to: obtainuplink channel information for channels between the plurality of receiveantenna elements and a plurality of transmit antenna elements associatedwith a plurality of user equipment (UEs); determine, for each transmitantenna element in the plurality, a channel strength based on the uplinkchannel information; order the plurality of transmit antenna elementsbased on the determined channel strengths; and in order fromhighest-ordered transmit antenna element to lowest-ordered transmitantenna element, select the respective transmit antenna element tocommunicate with one or more of the plurality of receive antennaelements during a first time slot in response to a determination that ameasurement that represents a spatial orthogonality between therespective transmit antenna element and one or more spatial elements ofone or more other transmit antenna elements in the plurality selected tocommunicate with one or more of the plurality of receive antennaelements satisfies a threshold value.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Embodiments of this disclosure will now be described, by way ofnon-limiting example, with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a cooperative MIMO network environmentthat includes a baseband unit (BBU), remote radio unit (RRUs), and UEsaccording to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating components of the BBU of FIG. 1 forselecting active UEs to serve during the same time slot over aparticular set of spatial dimensions according to an embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating a cooperative MIMO wirelessnetwork that includes the BBU of FIG. 1 according to an embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram depicting a UE selection routine illustrativelyimplemented by an RRU and/or a BBU to select which users to serve duringthe same time slot, according to one embodiment.

FIGS. 5A-5B are diagrams illustrated an example selection of UEs to beserved during the same time slot, according to an embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram depicting a user selection routine for DLtransmissions based on a threshold illustratively implemented by a BBUand/or one or more RRUs, according to one embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a flow diagram depicting a user selection routine for DLtransmissions illustratively implemented by a BBU and/or one or moreRRUs, according to one embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a flow diagram depicting a user selection routine for ULtransmissions illustratively implemented by a BBU and/or one or moreRRUs, according to one embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram illustrating an example baseband unit andremote radio unit according to an embodiment.

FIG. 10 is a schematic block diagram of an example UE according to anembodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF CERTAIN EMBODIMENTS

The following description of certain embodiments presents variousdescriptions of specific embodiments. However, the innovations describedherein can be embodied in a multitude of different ways, for example, asdefined and covered by the claims. In this description, reference ismade to the drawings where like reference numerals can indicateidentical or functionally similar elements. It will be understood thatelements illustrated in the figures are not necessarily drawn to scale.Moreover, it will be understood that certain embodiments can includemore elements than illustrated in a drawing and/or a subset of theelements illustrated in a drawing. Further, some embodiments canincorporate any suitable combination of features from two or moredrawings. The headings provided herein are for convenience only and donot necessarily affect the scope or meaning of the claims.

As wireless networks are increasingly used to run services sensitive toreliability and/or latency issues (e.g., media streaming, video chat,virtual reality, etc.), multi-antenna techniques have served as aprominent solution for minimizing such issues. For example, one type ofmulti-antenna solution is a traditional multiple-input multiple-output(MIMO) network in which transmitters and receivers each have multipleantennas over which communications are sent. However, it has becomedifficult for certain wireless devices (e.g., user equipment (UE), basestations, etc.) to support multiple antennas and/or proper spacingbetween antennas as the devices have evolved. Cooperative MIMO networks,on the other hand, can achieve the benefits of traditional MIMO networkswithout being constrained by whether the wireless devices can supportmultiple antennas. For example, one or more wireless devices can begrouped together to create a virtual antenna array, and the groupedwireless devices together can act as a MIMO device.

One version of Cooperative MIMO is Coordinated Multipoint (CoMP) inwhich one or more base stations share data, channel state information,etc., coordinating downlink transmissions and jointly processing uplinktransmissions. Because base stations coordinate downlink transmissions,disruptions and/or interruptions caused by handing over a UE from onebase station to another can be avoided. In addition, the base stationscan work collectively to cover geographic areas that otherwise may notbe covered by any single base station. Thus, a CoMP network may providea seamless area of coverage for a UE.

Generally, base stations can serve a certain number of UEssimultaneously within the same time slot or over different time slots.However, the number of UEs that can be served simultaneously within thesame time slot may be limited by the number of spatial dimensions orlayers collectively served by the base stations. As described herein,the number of spatial dimensions collectively served by the basestations may be the number of spatial beams served by the base stations,the number of transmission layers served by the base stations (duringdownlink scenarios), or the number of receive layers provided by thebase stations (during uplink scenarios). For example, the number ofspatial dimensions collectively served by the base stations may be basedon the total number of transmit antennas provided by the base stations.Assuming that the total number of transmit antennas is N, the number ofUEs that can be served simultaneously within the same time slot is somenumber K less than or equal to N.

Occasionally, the number of UEs that are active or otherwise capable ofreceiving downlink messages or transmitting uplink messages exceeds thenumber of spatial dimensions collectively served by the base stations.Thus, the base stations can serve just a subset of all of the active UEsduring the same time slot. In fact, as described below, it may bebeneficial for the base stations to serve just a subset of all of theactive UEs during the same time slot even if there are a sufficientnumber of spatial dimensions to serve all of the active UEs.

Selecting which active UEs to serve and which active UEs not to serveduring the same time slot can be difficult, however. For example,serving a particular combination of active UEs using a particularcombination of spatial dimensions during the same time slot may resultin some UEs suffering from a high level of interference. In particular,some UEs may suffer from a high level of interference if the spatialdimensions over which communicates are sent to or received by the UEsare correlated (e.g., the spatial dimensions are not orthogonal to eachother by at least a threshold angle, the spatial dimensions are obliqueor parallel with each other at least within a threshold angle, etc.).It, therefore, may be beneficial to select a combination of active UEsto serve during the same time slot and a combination of spatialdimensions over which the active UEs are served that maximizes orimproves downlink capacity and/or throughput within the per base stationtransmit antenna maximum power constraint and/or that maximizes orimproves uplink capacity and/or throughput within the per UE transmitantenna maximum power constraint (e.g., a combination that reducespotential active UE interference). Depending on the number of basestations and active UEs in the MIMO network, there may be hundreds tothousands of possible combinations of active UE and spatial dimensiongroupings. As an illustrative example, a number of spatial dimensionsserved by the base stations may be 64 or 128, which can result inthousands of different possible combinations of active UE and spatialdimension groupings even if the number of active UEs in the MIMO networkis relatively small (e.g., 4, 8, 12, etc.).

Whether a particular combination of active UE and spatial dimensiongroupings maximizes or improves capacity and/or throughput may depend ona precoder and/or sum capacity computed for the particular combination.Given the number of possible combinations, however, computing a precoderand/or sum capacity for some or all of the possible combinations can beresource intensive and involve extremely high complexity, and thereforebe impractical.

To reduce the complexity and the amount of resources (e.g., hardwareresources of a baseband unit or other central processing system)allocated to identify a particular combination of active UE and spatialdimension groupings, a baseband unit or a central processing system inthe MIMO network can be configured to separate the selection of aparticular combination of active UE and spatial dimension groupings fromcomputations of the precoder and/or the sum capacity. Rather, thebaseband unit or the central processing system can treat differentspatial dimensions as virtual UEs. In this way, the baseband unit or thecentral processing system can schedule a single UE with multiple spatialdimensions.

For example, the baseband unit or the central processing system canselect a particular combination of active UE and spatial dimensiongroupings for a particular frequency wholeband (e.g., a group ofresource blocks (RBs) that each correspond to a particular frequencyrange and a single time slot, where the group of RBs collectivelycorrespond to the whole frequency band of a carrier) or a frequencysub-band (e.g., a single RB or a group of consecutive RBs (e.g., RBG)that correspond with a portion of, but not all of, the whole frequencyband of a carrier). The baseband unit or the central processing systemcan identify separate groupings for uplink and downlink communicationsor can identify the same groupings for uplink and downlinkcommunications.

For downlink communications (e.g., transmission from base stations toUEs) and a particular frequency wholeband or sub-band, the baseband unitor the central processing system can determine uplink channelinformation (e.g., uplink spatial or channel coefficients) for channelsbetween base stations and UEs. In particular, the baseband unit or thecentral processing system can determine uplink channel information forchannels between each base station receive antenna element and each UEtransmit antenna element. The baseband unit or the central processingsystem can then estimate downlink channel information (e.g., downlinkspatial or channel coefficients) using the uplink channel information.Thus, the estimated downlink channel information may correspond tochannels between each base station transmit antenna element and each UEreceive antenna element. In particular, the downlink channel informationcan be estimated from the determined uplink channel information becausean assumption may be made that uplink and downlink communications aremultiplexed in a time division duplexing manner (e.g., uplink anddownlink communications are scheduled during different time slots) andthat the uplink and downlink channels maintain reciprocity over a shortperiod of time (e.g., 1 ms, 5, ms, 10 ms, etc.). Thus, for each UE, thebaseband unit or the central processing system can determine a matrix ofestimated downlink channel information, where each element in the matrixcorresponds to a particular base station transmit antenna element and areceive antenna element of the respective UE. The estimated downlinkchannel information is optionally subject to a scaling correct as aresult of calibration between downlink and uplink radio frequency (RF)chains.

The baseband unit or the central processing system can, for each UE,determine a matrix norm (e.g., the L2-norm) of the matrix of estimateddownlink channel information corresponding to the respective UE. Thematrix norm may represent a strength of a channel between the basestations and the respective UE, where a larger matrix norm may representa stronger channel.

The baseband unit or the central processing system can then order theUEs. For example, the baseband unit or the central processing system canfactor channel strength, latency, and/or a fairness metric indetermining how to order the UEs. As one example, the baseband unit orthe central processing system can determine an average throughput ofeach UE over a period of time. Thus, if a UE has not been served for along period of time, the average throughput determined for the UE may bea small value. Some UEs can transmit over multiple spatial dimensionssimultaneously, and therefore the determined average throughput may beper spatial dimension. The baseband unit or the central processingsystem can compute a fairness metric for each UE by dividing the matrixnorm of the respective UE by the average throughput of the respectiveUE. The baseband unit or the central processing system can then orderthe UEs based on the fairness metric. For example, the baseband unit orthe central processing system can order the UEs such that the UE havingthe highest fairness metric is ordered first, the UE having the secondhighest fairness metric is ordered second, the UE having the thirdhighest fairness metric is ordered third, and so on.

Alternatively, in situations in which UEs can support multiple spatialdimensions simultaneously, the baseband unit or the central processingsystem can determine a normalized throughput for each UE to order theUEs. For example, the baseband unit or the central processing system candetermine an average throughput of each UE over a period of time. Thebaseband unit or the central processing system can then, for each UE,determine a number of potential spatial dimensions that will be used bythe respective UE, and divide the average throughput of the respectiveUE by the number of potential spatial dimensions that will be used bythe respective UE to form the normalized throughput for the respectiveUE. The baseband unit or the central processing system can thendetermine the fairness metrics using the normalized throughputs ratherthan the average throughputs, and order the UEs using the fairnessmetrics as described above.

Once the UEs are ordered, the baseband unit or the central processingsystem can determine a threshold based on the largest matrix norm. Forexample, the threshold can be the product of a constant and the largestmatrix norm. The constant can be the same value for all UEs.Alternatively, the constant can initially be one value and thenadaptively change based on block error rate (BLER) performanceassociated with one or more of the UE receive antenna elements. Inanother alternative, the constant can be a value specific to aparticular UE that optionally increases if the particular UE experiencesinterference from other simultaneously scheduled UEs (e.g., where theamount of the increase can be larger the more interference that isexperienced).

Using the determined threshold and the UE order, the baseband unit orthe central processing system can begin the UE and spatial dimensionselection process. For example, the baseband unit or the centralprocessing system can select the UE ordered first to be served duringthe time slot being scheduled. The baseband unit or the centralprocessing system can then compute QR decomposition(s) to determinewhich additional UEs should be selected to be served during the timeslot being scheduled. For example, computation of the QR decompositionsmay allow the baseband unit or the central processing system todetermine whether the corresponding UEs would be associated with aspatial dimension that is roughly orthogonal (e.g., orthogonal by atleast a threshold angle) to the spatial dimensions of other UEs alreadyselected by the baseband unit or the central processing system to beserved during the time slot. As an illustrative example, each QRdecomposition computation for a UE may result in the generation of ameasurement (e.g., value r described below) that represents the spatialorthogonality between one or more receive antennas of the UE and spatialelements (e.g., spatial channels, spatial beams, spatial dimensions,etc.) of one or more receive antennas of other UE(s), such as otherUE(s) already selected to be served during the time slot beingscheduled, that can be compared to the determined threshold. If themeasurement satisfies the threshold (e.g., the measurement is greaterthan the threshold), then the baseband unit or the central processingsystem determines that the corresponding UE would be associated with aspatial dimension that is roughly orthogonal to the spatial dimensionsof other UEs already selected by the baseband unit or the centralprocessing system to be served during the time slot. Otherwise, if themeasurement does not satisfy the threshold (e.g., the measurement isless than or equal to the determined threshold), then then the basebandunit or the central processing system determines that the correspondingUE would be associated with a spatial dimension that is not roughlyorthogonal to the spatial dimensions of other UEs already selected bythe baseband unit or the central processing system to be served duringthe time slot. Thus, the baseband unit or the central processing systemcan iterate through each of the remaining UEs and, using the QRdecomposition of the respective UE, determine if the spatial dimensionof the respective UE is roughly orthogonal to the spatial dimensions ofother UEs already selected to be served during the time slot. If thespatial dimension of the respective UE is roughly orthogonal to thespatial dimensions of other UEs already selected to be served during thetime slot, then the baseband unit or the central processing system canselect the respective UE to also be served during the time slot beingscheduled. Otherwise, if the spatial dimension of the respective UE isnot roughly orthogonal (e.g., orthogonal by less than a threshold angle)to the spatial dimensions of other UEs already selected to be servedduring the time slot, then the baseband unit or the central processingsystem can decline to select the respective UE to be served during thetime slot being scheduled and move on to the next UE in the order todetermine whether the next UE should be selected to be served during thetime slot being scheduled. The baseband unit or the central processingsystem can repeat these operations until the maximum number of UEs thatcan be served during the same time slot are selected or until all UEshave been evaluated for possible selection.

After determining which UEs to serve during the same time slot, thebaseband unit or the central processing system can compute the downlinkprecoder (e.g., the downlink regularized zero forcing (RZF) precoder).The baseband unit or the central processing system can use anidentification of the selected UEs, estimated downlink channelinformation for the selected UEs, and/or QR decompositions of theselected UEs to determine the downlink precoder.

For uplink communications (e.g., transmissions from UEs to basestations) and a particular frequency wholeband or sub-band, the basebandunit or the central processing system can perform the same operationsdescribed above to select a particular active UE and spatial dimensiongrouping to serve during the same time slot. However, the baseband unitor the central processing system may not need to determine any downlinkchannel information, and the uplink channel information can besubstituted for the downlink channel information in any computationsperformed by the baseband unit or the central processing system. Thus,for each UE, the baseband unit or the central processing system candetermine a matrix of uplink channel information, where each element inthe matrix corresponds to a particular base station receive antennaelement and a transmit antenna element of the respective UE.Furthermore, the baseband unit or the central processing system may notcompute a precoder when selecting a particular active UE and spatialdimension grouping to serve during the same time slot for uplinkcommunications. However, the baseband unit or the central processingsystem may compute receiver beamforming weights so that a serving nodecan receive data from multiple UEs simultaneously.

After the active UE and spatial dimension grouping is selected for atime slot, the base station(s) that serve a particular UE during thetime slot can each transmit the same downlink data to the UE during thetime slot using one or more spatial beams. The UE can then combine thereceived data (e.g., by selecting the best spatial beam, by performing asoft combine, by performing a non-coherent combine, by performing acoherent combine, etc.) and perform any corresponding operations.

As described herein, the baseband unit or the central processing systemcan compute and use vector norms in place of the matrix norms to selecta particular combination of active UE and spatial dimension groupings.For example, the baseband unit or the central processing system cancompute vector norms instead of matrix norms if each UE has a singlereceive (or transmit) antenna element. As another example, the basebandunit or the central processing system can compute vector norms insteadof matrix norms if the baseband unit or the central processing systemtreats each UE receive (or transmit) antenna element as a different“user.” In particular, the baseband or central processing system maytreat each UE as a different “user” when computing matrix norms. Bytreating each UE receive (or transmit) antenna element as a different“user,” the baseband unit or the central processing system can select aparticular combination of active UE receive (or transmit) antennaelement and spatial dimension groupings to be served during the sametime slot rather than a particular combination of active UE and spatialdimension groupings. Thus, the baseband unit or the central processingsystem may ultimately select some receive (or transmit) antenna elementsof an active UE, but not all of the active UE's receive (or transmit)antenna elements, to be served during the same time slot.

In some embodiments, the baseband unit or the central processing systemselects an active UE and spatial dimension grouping for downlinktransmissions during a particular time slot and uses this selection foruplink transmissions during another time slot (e.g., a time slotcontiguous and after the downlink transmission time slot) as well. Thus,the baseband unit or the central processing system can perform theactive UE and spatial dimension selection once for both downlink anduplink transmissions. In other embodiments, the baseband unit or thecentral processing system performs the active UE and spatial dimensionselection twice for each set of downlink and uplink time slots—once fordownlink transmissions and once for uplink transmissions. In thisembodiment, the selection of active UE and spatial dimension groupingsfor downlink transmissions can be the same or different as the selectionof active UE and spatial dimension groupings for uplink transmissions.

The baseband unit or the central processing system can select an activeUE and spatial dimension grouping for a single time slot or a group oftime slots. For example, the baseband unit or the central processingsystem can perform the active UE and spatial dimension groupingselection prior to a particular time slot, and repeat the operationsprior to each successive time slot. Alternatively, the baseband unit orthe central processing system can perform the active UE and spatialdimension grouping selection once prior to a time slot, and theselection can be used for one or more future time slots.

While the present disclosure is described herein such that the basebandunit or the central processing system performs the active UE and spatialdimension grouping selection and other related operations, this is notmeant to be limiting. In other embodiments, the base stations may sharedata and collectively perform the active UE and spatial dimensiongrouping selection and/or other related operations described herein asbeing performed by the baseband unit or the central processing systemindependent of or jointly with the baseband unit or the centralprocessing system. In such embodiments, the baseband unit or the centralprocessing system is optionally present (e.g., the baseband unit or thecentral processing system may not be present if the base stationsperform the operations independent of the baseband unit or the centralprocessing system).

The active UE and spatial dimension grouping selection is describedherein as being implemented within a CoMP network in which UEsnon-coherently combine downlink data. The techniques described herein,however, can be applied to any type of MIMO network. Furthermore, thetechniques described herein are not limited to MIMO networks in whichUEs non-coherently combine downlink data. The UEs may combine downlinkdata in any suitable manner.

In an embodiment, the CoMP network is designed to operate at higherfrequencies, such as at mmW frequencies. The techniques described hereincan be applied to networks operating at any suitable range offrequencies. In addition, the techniques described herein can be usedfor a variety of use cases, such as media streaming, video chat, virtualreality, etc.

Active UE Selection in a MIMO Network

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a cooperative MIMO network environment100 that includes a baseband unit (BBU) 110, remote radio unit (RRUs)104A-104N, and UEs 102A-102K according to an embodiment. For example,the network environment 100 can be a cooperative, or cloud radio accessnetwork (C-RAN) environment 100. The cooperative MIMO network canoptionally function as a CoMP network in which UEs 102A-102Knon-coherently combine downlink data. The RRUs 104A-104N may communicatewith each other via a wired and/or wireless connection. The RRUs104A-104N, directly or via a central processing system (e.g., the BBU110), may further communicate with a core network (not shown) operatedby a network service provider. The RRUs 104A-104N may be configured totransmit data to and/or receive data from some or all of the UEs102A-102K at mmW frequencies.

In the network environment 100, base station functionality is subdividedbetween the BBU 110 and multiple RRUs (e.g., RRU 104A-104N). An RRU mayinclude multiple antennas, and one or more of the antennas may serve asa transmit-receive point (TRP). The RRU and/or a TRP may be referred toas a serving node or a base station. The BBU 110 may be physicallyconnected to the RRUs 104A-104N, such as via an optical fiberconnection. The BBU 110 may provide operational details to an RRU104A-104N to control transmission and reception of signals from the RRU104A-104N along with control data and payload data to transmit. The RRU104A-104N may provide data to the network received from UEs 102A-102Kwithin a service area associated with the RRU 104A-104N. An RRU104A-104N can provide service to devices (e.g., UEs 102A-102K) with aservice area. For example, wireless downlink transmission service may beprovided by an RRU 104A-104N to the service area to communicate data toone or more devices within the service area.

The RRUs 104A-104N may each have one or more transmit antennas that eachsupport one or more digital basebands. In some embodiments, each RRU104A-104N has the same number of transmit antennas. In otherembodiments, some or all RRUs 104A-104N have a different number oftransmit antennas than other RRUs 104A-104N. Thus, the RRUs 104A-104Nmay collectively be capable of transmitting N spatial beams, where N isthe product of the number of RRUs 104A-104N in the network environment100 and the number of transmit antennas operated by a single RRU104A-104N. Similarly, each RRU 104A-104N can have the same number ordifferent number of receive antennas. The BBU 110 and/or the RRUs104A-104N can be collectively referred to herein as a “network system.”

Various standards and protocols may be included in the networkenvironment 100 to wirelessly communicate data between a base station(e.g., an RRU 104) and a wireless communication device (e.g., a UE 102).Some wireless devices may communicate using an orthogonalfrequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) digital modulation scheme via aphysical layer. OFDM standards and protocols can include the thirdgeneration partnership project (3GPP) long term evolution (LTE), theInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.16 standard(e.g., 802.16e, 802.16m), which may be known as WiMAX (Worldwideinteroperability for Microwave Access), and the IEEE 802.11 standard,which may be known as Wi-Fi. In some systems, a radio access network(RAN) may include one or more base stations associated with one or moreevolved NodeBs (also commonly denoted as enhanced NodeBs, eNodeBs, oreNBs), next generation NodeBs (gNBs), or any other suitable NodeBs(xNBs). In other embodiments, radio network controllers (RNCs) may beprovided as the base stations. A base station provides a bridge betweenthe wireless network and a core network such as the Internet. The basestation may be included to facilitate exchange of data for the wirelesscommunication devices of the wireless network.

The wireless communication device may be referred to as a user equipment(UE). The UE may be a device used by a user such as a smartphone, alaptop, a tablet computer, cellular telephone, a wearable computingdevice such as smart glasses or a smart watch or an ear piece, one ormore networked appliances (e.g., consumer networked appliances orindustrial plant equipment), an industrial robot with connectivity, or avehicle. In some implementations, the UE may include a sensor or othernetworked device configured to collect data and wirelessly provide thedata to a device (e.g., server) connected to a core network such as theInternet. Such devices may be referred to as Internet of Things devices(IoT devices). A downlink (DL) transmission generally refers to acommunication from a base station to the wireless communication device,and an uplink (UL) transmission generally refers to a communication fromthe wireless communication device to the base station.

An active UE may be a UE for which a base station has data ready totransmit to the UE or has been informed (e.g., by another UE, by anotherbase station, by the BBU 110, by the core network, etc.) that data willbe arriving with the UE as the intended destination. Similarly, anactive UE may also be a UE that has data ready to transmit to a basestation.

As described herein, an RRU 104 may include one or more antennas, andone or more of the antennas may serve as a TRP. An RRU 104 may includemultiple antennas to provide multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO)communications. For example, an RRU 104 may be equipped with variousnumbers of transmit antennas (e.g., 1, 2, 4, 8, or more) that can beused simultaneously for transmission to one or more receivers, such as aUE 102. Receiving devices (e.g., UEs 102) may include more than onereceive antenna (e.g., 2, 4, etc.). The array of receive antennas may beconfigured to simultaneously receive transmissions from the RRU 104.Each antenna included in a RRU 104 may be individually configured totransmit and/or receive according to a specific time, frequency, power,and direction configuration. Similarly, each antenna included in a UE102 may be individually configured to transmit or receive according to aspecific time, frequency, power, and direction configuration. Theconfiguration may be provided by the RRU 104 and/or the BBU 110. Thedirection configuration may be generated based on network estimate usingchannel reciprocity or determined based on feedback from UE 102 viaselection of a beamforming codebook index, or a hybrid of the two.

Each RRU 104A-104N may support one or more digital basebands, the numberof which may be less than or equal to the number of transmit antennasthat the respective RRU 104A-104N has. Thus, assuming each RRU 104A-104Nhas N_(t) transmit antennas supported by N_(d) digital basebands, themaximum number of spatial beams that can be supported by the RRUs104A-104N is N_(t)*the number of RRUs 104, and the maximum number ofindependent streams that can be supported by the RRUs 104A-104N isN_(d)*the number of RRUs 104. For simplicity and ease of explanation,the RRUs 104A-104N are assumed to each have 4 transmit antennas and 4receive antennas. Thus, the maximum number of spatial beams that can besupported by the RRUs 104A-104N is 4*the number of RRUs 104. The RRUs104A-104N can include the same number of receive antennas (e.g., usedfor UL transmissions) and transmit antennas (e.g., used for DLtransmissions) or a different number of receive antennas and transmitantennas. In some embodiments, one or more antennas of a RRU 104A-104Ncan both transmit DL signals and receive UL signals. The techniquesdescribed herein apply whether the RRUs 104A-104N have the same ordifferent number of antennas.

Similarly, the UEs 102A-102K can each include the same number of receiveantennas (e.g., used for DL transmissions) and transmit antennas (e.g.,used for UL transmissions) or a different number of receive antennas andtransmit antennas. In some embodiments, one or more antennas of a UE 102can both transmit UL signals and receive DL signals. Furthermore, theUEs 102A-102K and RRUs 104A-104N can each include the same number ofantennas for DL and/or UL transmissions. Alternatively, one or more ofthe UEs 102A-102K and/or one or more of the RRUs 104A-104N can include adifferent number of antennas for DL and/or UL transmissions than otherUEs 102A-102K and/or RRUs 104A-104N (e.g., RRU 104A can include 3transmit antennas and 3 receive antennas, UE 102A can include 4 receiveantennas and 4 transmit antennas, RRU 104B can include 4 transmitantennas and 2 receive antennas, UE 102B can include 2 receive antennasand 3 transmit antennas, etc.). For simplicity and ease of explanation,the UEs 102A-102N are assumed to each have 4 receive antennas and 4transmit antennas. The techniques described herein apply whether the UEs102A-102K have the same or different number of antennas.

The BBU 110 can include a scheduler (e.g., a scheduler control, such asscheduler control 214 of FIG. 2) that performs operations to select agrouping of active UEs and spatial dimensions to serve during the sametime slot. The scheduler can perform the operations described herein forscheduling DL transmissions, UL transmissions, or both DL and ULtransmissions. In particular, the scheduler can perform QRdecompositions to select active UEs to serve during the same time slotover a particular set of spatial dimensions. The operations of thescheduler (e.g., the scheduler control 214) are described below withrespect to FIG. 2.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating components of the BBU 110 for selectingactive UEs to serve during the same time slot over a particular set ofspatial dimensions according to an embodiment. As illustrated in FIG. 2,the BBU 110 includes various transmit (TX) buffers 212A-212K, thescheduler control 214, and a channel state data store 230. A TX buffer212A-212K may store DL data for a UE 102A-102K. For example, the BBU 110may include one or more TX buffers 212A-212K for each active UE102A-102K present in the network environment 100. For ease ofexplanation, FIG. 2 is illustrated such that the TX buffer 212A storesDL data for UE 102A, TX buffer 212B stores DL data for UE 102B, TXbuffer 212K stores DL data for UE 102K, and so on.

The channel state data store 230 can store channel state information(e.g., UL and/or DL channel state information) for a variety of channelsbetween the RRUs 104A-104N and the UEs 102A-102K. The channel stateinformation may be associated with a specific RRU 104 and UE 102combination, or the channel state information may be associated with aspecific transmit (or receive) antenna of an RRU 104 and a specificreceive (or transmit) antenna of a UE 102. The channel state informationcan include UL channel information acquired by the BBU 110 through ULchannel estimations based on UL pilot signals. For example, UEs102A-102K can transmit sounding reference signal (SRS) and/or physicaluplink shared channel (PUSCH) demodulation reference signal (DMRS) pilotsignals to one or more RRUs 104A-104N, and the BBU 110 (and/or one ormore of the RRUs 104A-104N) can determine the UL channel informationbased on the transmitted pilot signals.

The TX buffers 212A-212K can provide UE 102A-102K DL data to thescheduler control 214, and the scheduler control 214 can obtain channelstate information from the channel state data store 230. The schedulercontrol 214 can determine which UEs 102A-102K are active based on whichUEs 102A-102K are associated with a TX buffer 212A-212K that is storingDL data for transmission to an associated UE 102A-102K. For simplicity,FIG. 2 is illustrated as showing that each of TX buffers 212A-212K isstoring DL data for the associated UEs 102A-102K. Thus, each of UEs102A-102K is considered to be an active UE.

The scheduler control 214 can select some or all of the active UEs102A-102K to receive DL and/or UL transmissions over one or more spatialdimensions during the same time slot. The number of active UEs 102A-102Kselected by the scheduler control 214 may not exceed the total number ofspatial dimensions collectively provided by the RRUs 104A-104N presentin the network environment 100. In an embodiment, the total number ofspatial dimensions collectively provided by the RRUs 104A-104N can bethe total number of transmit antennas (or receive antennas) provided bythe RRUs 104A-104N. The scheduler control 214 can select a particularcombination of active UE 102A-102K and spatial dimension groupings for aparticular frequency wholeband (e.g., a group of RBs that eachcorrespond to a particular frequency range and a single time slot, wherethe group of RBs collectively correspond to the whole frequency band ofa carrier) or a frequency sub-band (e.g., a single RB or RBGs thatcorrespond with a portion of, but not all of, the whole frequency bandof a carrier). The scheduler control 214 can identify separate groupingsfor UL and DL communications or can identify the same groupings for ULand DL communications.

For DL communications and a particular frequency wholeband or sub-band,the scheduler control 214 can obtain, from the channel state data store230, channel state information or channel information (e.g., UL spatialor channel coefficients) for channels between the RRUs 104A-104N and theUEs 102A-102K. In particular, the scheduler control 214 can obtain ULchannel state information for channels between each RRU 104A-104Nreceive antenna and each UE 102A-102K transmit antenna. The schedulercontrol 214 can then estimate DL channel state information or channelinformation (e.g., DL spatial or channel coefficients) using the ULchannel information. For example, the scheduler 214 can set the DLspatial or channel coefficients for a DL channel between a RRU 104A-104Nand a UE 102A-102K to be the same as the UL spatial or channelcoefficients for an UL channel between the same RRU 104A-104N and thesame UE 102A-102K. The estimated DL channel state information isoptionally subject to a scaling correct (E.g., by the scheduler control214) as a result of calibration between DL and UL RF chains. Thus, theestimated DL channel state information may correspond to channelsbetween each RRU 104A-104N transmit antenna and each UE 102A-102Kreceive antenna. In an embodiment, the DL channel state information canbe estimated from the obtained UL channel state information because anassumption may be made that UL and DL communications are multiplexed ina time division duplexing manner (e.g., UL and DL communications arescheduled during different time slots) and that the UL and DL channelsmaintain reciprocity over a short period of time (e.g., a 10 ms, 100 ms,1 s, 10 s, etc.). Thus, for each active UE 102A-102K, the schedulercontrol 214 can determine a matrix of estimated DL channel stateinformation, where each element in the matrix corresponds to aparticular RRU 104A-104N transmit antenna and a receive antenna of therespective UE 102A-102K.

As an illustrated example, H, can be an N_(T)×N_(r,i) matrix ofestimated DL channel state information for UE i, where N_(T) is thetotal number of spatial dimensions (e.g., the total number of transmitantennas, the total number of spatial beams, etc.) collectively providedby the RRUs 104A-104N and N_(r,i) is the total number of receiveantennas provided by the UE i. Each element of the matrix may thereforebe DL channel state information for a channel between an RRU 104A-104Nprovided spatial dimension (e.g., an RRU 104A-104N transmit antenna, anRRU 104A-104N spatial beam, etc.) and a receive antenna of the UE wherethe elements of the matrix collectively cover each possible spatialdimension and UE i receive antenna pair. The scheduler control 214 candetermine the matrix H_(i) for each of the active UEs 102A-102K (e.g.,thereby determining K matrices in this example). Alternatively or inaddition, the scheduler control 214 can determine a combined matrix Hcorresponding to each of the active UEs 102A-102K. The combined matrix Hcan be an N_(T)×K_(r) matrix, where K_(r) is the sum of all receiveantennas collectively provided by all of the active UEs 102A-102K (e.g.,Σ_(i=1) ^(K)N_(r,i)).

The scheduler control 214 can, for each active UE 102A-102K, determine amatrix norm (e.g., the L2-norm) of the matrix of estimated DL channelinformation corresponding to the respective UE 102A-102K. The matrixnorm may represent a strength of a channel between the RRUs 104A-104Nand the respective UE 102A-102K, where a larger matrix norm mayrepresent a stronger channel.

When determining the matrix norms, the scheduler control 214 may treateach UE 102A-102K as an independent “user” and ultimately selects ordoes not select a UE 102A-102K to be served during the time slot beingscheduled. However, the scheduler control 214 can instead treat eachreceive antenna of a UE 102A-102K as an independent “user” and select ornot select a receive antenna of a UE 102A-102K to be served during thetime slot being scheduled. Thus, instead of selecting users to be servedduring the time slot being scheduled at the UE 102A-102K level, thescheduler control 214 can select users to be served during the time slotbeing scheduled at the UE 102A-102K receive antenna level. This canresult, for example, in some receive antennas of a particular UE102A-102K being scheduled and other receive antennas of the same UE102A-102K not being scheduled during the time slot. To make selectionsat the receive antenna level, the scheduler control 214 can separate thematrix associated with a UE 102A-102K into various column vectors (orseparately determine each column vector), where each column vector is aN_(T)×1 vector associated with a particular active UE 102A-102K receiveantenna and each element within the column vector includes DL channelstate information for a channel between an RRU 104A-104N providedspatial dimension (e.g., a transmit antenna of an RRU 104A-104N, aspatial beam of an RRU 104A-104N, etc.) and the associated active UE102A-102K receive antenna. The elements within a column vector maycollectively cover each possible spatial dimension and associated activeUE 102A-102K receive antenna pair. The scheduler control 214 can thendetermine a vector norm for each of these column vectors. Like thematrix norm, the vector norm may represent a strength of a channelbetween the RRUs 104A-104N and the associated active UE 102A-102Kreceive antenna, where a larger vector norm may represent a strongerchannel.

The scheduler control 214 can then order the users (e.g., active UEs102A-102K or active UE 102A-102K receive antennas). For example, thescheduler control 214 can factor channel strength, latency, and/or afairness metric in determining how to order the users. As one example,the scheduler control 214 can determine an average throughput of eachuser over a period of time. Thus, if a user has not been served for along period of time, the average throughput determined for the user maybe a small value. Some users can transmit over multiple spatialdimensions simultaneously, and therefore the determined averagethroughput may be per spatial dimension. The scheduler control 214 cancompute a fairness metric for each user by dividing the matrix norm orvector norm of the respective user by the average throughput of therespective user. The fairness metric can be represented mathematicallyas follows:

$\frac{{h_{1}}^{2}}{T_{1}},\frac{{h_{2}}^{2}}{T_{2}},{\ldots\mspace{11mu}\frac{{h_{K}}^{2}}{T_{K}}}$where ∥h_(n)∥² represents a matrix norm associated with UE n or a vectornorm associated with UE receive antenna n, and where T_(n) represents anaverage threshold for user n (e.g., UE n or UE receive antenna n).

The scheduler control 214 can then order the users based on the fairnessmetric. For example, the scheduler control 214 can order the users suchthat the user having the highest fairness metric is ordered first, theuser having the second highest fairness metric is ordered second, theuser having the third highest fairness metric is ordered third, and soon.

Alternatively, in situations in which users can support multiple spatialdimensions simultaneously, the scheduler control 214 can determine anormalized throughput for each user to order the users. For example, thescheduler control 214 can determine an average throughput of each userover a period of time. The scheduler control 214 can then, for eachuser, determine a number of potential spatial dimensions that will beused by the respective user, and divide the average throughput of therespective user by the number of potential spatial dimensions that willbe used by the respective user to form the normalized throughput for therespective user. The normalized throughput in this embodiment can berepresented mathematically as follows:

$T_{i} = \frac{{\overset{\sim}{T}}_{i}}{N_{L,i}}$where T_(i) represents the normalized throughput of user i, {tilde over(T)}_(i) represents the average throughput of user i, and N_(L,i)represents the number of potential spatial dimensions (or number ofpotential layers) that will be used by user i. The scheduler control 214can then determine the fairness metrics using the normalized throughputsrather than the average throughputs, and order the users using thefairness metrics as described above.

The scheduler control 214 can optionally consider other factors whenordering the users. For example, instead of or in addition todetermining the fairness metric using average or normalized throughput,the scheduler control 214 can determine the fairness metric usinglatency priority (e.g., a quality of service (QoS) priority) and/orspectral efficiency measurements.

Once the users are ordered, the scheduler control 214 can determine athreshold based on the largest matrix norm or the largest vector norm.For example, the threshold can be the product of a constant and thelargest matrix norm or the largest vector norm. The threshold can berepresented mathematically as follows:

${Th} = {c*{\max\limits_{i}\left( {h_{i}} \right)}}$where Th represents the threshold, c is the constant, and

$\max\limits_{i}\left( {h_{i}} \right)$represents the largest matrix or vector norm.

The constant can be the same value for all users. For example, theconstant can be the square root of 0.1. The value of the constant may beselected by the scheduler control 214, another component of the BBU 110,or an external computing system (not shown) that runs one or morecomputer simulations to identify an appropriate constant. Alternatively,the constant can initially be one value (e.g., the square root of 0.1),and then the scheduler control 214 can adaptively change the constantbased on the BLER performance associated with one or more of the users(e.g., based on the BLER performance of one or more UEs 102A-102K, suchas the UE 102A-102K associated with the largest matrix or vector norm;based on the BLER performance of one or more UE 102A-102K receiveantennas, such as the UE 102A-102K receive antenna associated with thelargest matrix or vector norm; etc.). In another alternative, theconstant can be a value specific to a particular user, such that oneconstant is associated with each user. The scheduler control 214 canthen change the value of a constant associated with a user based on theuser's BLER performance, such as the BLER performance of the firsthybrid automatic repeat request (HARM) transmissions. In other words,the scheduler control 214 can change the value of the constant based oninterference experienced by the user from other simultaneously scheduledusers. In particular, the scheduler control 214 can increase theconstant value for a user if the user experiences interference fromother simultaneously scheduled users, where the amount of the increasecan be larger the more interference that is experienced. For example,the manner in which the scheduler control 214 adjusts the constant for auser i can be represented mathematically as follows:c _(i) =c _(i) +sΔwhere ci is the constant for user i, where Δ can be a small positivestep size parameter (e.g., 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, etc.), and where s can berepresented as follows:s=sgn(BLER_(inst)−BLER_(target))where BLER_(inst) is the instantaneous BLER performance experienced byuser i and BLER_(target) is the target BLER performance desired for useri.

Using the determined threshold and the user order, the scheduler control214 can begin the user (e.g., UE 102A-102K or UE 102A-102K receiveantenna) and spatial dimension selection process. For example, thescheduler control 214 can select the user ordered first to be servedduring the time slot being scheduled. The scheduler control 214 can thencompute QR decomposition(s) to determine which additional users shouldbe selected to be served during the time slot being scheduled. Forexample, computation of the QR decompositions may allow the schedulercontrol 214 to determine whether the corresponding users would beassociated with a spatial dimension that is roughly or approximatelyorthogonal (e.g., orthogonal by at least a threshold angle, such as 30°,45°, 60°, 75°, 90°, etc.) to the spatial dimensions of other usersalready selected by the scheduler control 214 to be served during thetime slot. In particular, the scheduler control 214 can, in the courseof computing a QR decomposition, determine a measurement that representsa spatial orthogonality of a user relative to spatial elements of otherusers already included in the scheduled set (e.g., the amount ofprojection of the spatial channel of the user onto the spatial channelof one or more other users, such as other user(s) already scheduledduring the time slot being scheduled, where the spatial channel of theuser is completely orthogonal with the spatial channel of the otheruser(s) if there is no amount of projection of the spatial channel ofthe user onto the spatial channel(s) of the other user(s); the amount ofoverlap between the desired spatial beam to the user and the spatialbeam(s) to one or more other users, such as other user(s) alreadyscheduled during the time slot being scheduled, where the desiredspatial beam to the user is completely orthogonal with the spatialbeam(s) of the other user(s) if there is no overlap (e.g., the desiredspatial beam to the user would not cause interference or leakage in thespatial beam(s) served to the other user(s) if there is no overlap);etc.) that can then be used to assess whether the user would beassociated with a spatial dimension that is roughly or approximatelyorthogonal to the spatial dimensions of other users already selected bythe scheduler control 214 to be served during the time slot. Themeasurement can also be referred to as representing a spatialorthogonality of a user with other user(s) selected to be served duringthe time slot being scheduled, or a spatial orthogonality between aspatial element of a user and spatial element(s) of other user(s)already selected to be in a scheduled set. Thus, the scheduler control214 can iterate through each of the remaining users and, using the QRdecomposition of the respective user, determine if the spatial dimensionof the respective user is roughly orthogonal to the spatial dimensionsof other users already selected to be served during the time slot.

If the spatial dimension of the respective user is roughly orapproximately orthogonal to the spatial dimensions of other usersalready selected to be served during the time slot, then the schedulercontrol 214 can select the respective user to also be served during thetime slot being scheduled. Otherwise, if the spatial dimension of therespective user is not roughly or approximately orthogonal (e.g.,orthogonal by less than a threshold angle, such as 30°, 45°, 60°, 75°,90°, etc.) to the spatial dimensions of other users already selected tobe served during the time slot, then the scheduler control 214 candecline to select the respective user to be served during the time slotbeing scheduled and move on to the next user in the order to determinewhether the next user should be selected to be served during the timeslot being scheduled. The scheduler control 214 can repeat theseoperations until the maximum number of users that can be served duringthe same time slot are selected (e.g., K users, where K is less than orequal to N, and where N is the total number of spatial dimensionssupported by the RRUs 104A-104N in the network environment 100) or untilall users have been evaluated for possible selection.

As an illustrative example, the scheduler control 214 can iteratethrough each of the remaining users, in order starting with the secondhighest ordered user, and compute the QR decomposition for therespective user. Computing the QR decomposition for a user may includethe scheduler control 214 computing a vector, and the scheduler control214 can determine a vector norm of the vector, compare the vector normof the vector to the determined threshold Th, and select the user to beserved during the time slot being scheduled if the vector norm isgreater than (or less than) the determined threshold Th. The vector normof the vector may be a measurement that represents a spatialorthogonality of the user relative to spatial elements of other user(s),such as other user(s) already scheduled to be served during the timeslot being scheduled. The process of iterating through the remainingusers to compute a vector norm of the vector associated with therespective user and to compare the vector norm to the determinedthreshold may be the operations that the scheduler control 214 performsto determine whether the spatial dimension of the respective user isroughly or approximately orthogonal to the spatial dimensions of usersalready selected to be served during the time slot being scheduled. Byselecting users that have roughly or approximately orthogonal spatialdimensions and not selecting users that do not have roughly orapproximately orthogonal spatial dimensions with other selected userspatial dimensions, the scheduler control 214 can reduce futuretransmission interference during the time slot being scheduled.

The QR decomposition and user selection process for the highest ordereduser can be represented mathematically as follows:

$H_{1} = {{Q_{1}R_{1}} = {\left\lbrack \frac{h_{1}}{r} \right\rbrack\mspace{11mu}\lbrack r\rbrack}}$H_(s) = [h₁]where H₁ represents the QR decomposition (e.g., Q₁R₁) of user 1 (e.g.,the highest ordered user), h₁ represents the matrix or vector of DLchannel state information for user 1, where r is the matrix or vectornorm of h₁ (e.g., ∥h₁∥), and where H_(s) represents a matrix or vectorof DL channel state information of users selected by the schedulercontrol 214 to be served during the time slot being scheduled. Here,H_(s) currently only includes the matrix or vector of DL channel stateinformation of user 1 because user 1 is the first and only user selectedby the scheduler control 214 to be served during the time slot so far.

For the remaining users (e.g., the K_(r)−1 users remaining if K_(r) isthe total number of active users in the network environment 100), the QRdecomposition and user selection process can be representedmathematically as follows:H _(k-1)=[h ₁ . . . h _(k-1)]=Q _(k-1) R _(k-1)where H_(k-1) represents the QR decomposition (e.g., Q_(k-1)R_(k-1)) ofuser k−1, and where the scheduler control 214 starts k at 2 (e.g., thesecond highest ordered user) and increments k by 1 until reaching K_(r)or until the maximum number of users have been scheduled. Given the QRdecomposition of user k−1, the scheduler control 214 can compute the QRdecomposition of user k as follows:

$H_{k} = {\left\lbrack {H_{k - 1}\mspace{31mu} h_{k}} \right\rbrack = {\left\lbrack {Q_{k - 1}R_{k - 1}\mspace{31mu} h_{k}} \right\rbrack = {{\left\lbrack {Q_{k - 1}\mspace{31mu}{r/r}} \right\rbrack \cdot \begin{bmatrix}R_{k - 1} & p \\0 & r\end{bmatrix}} = {Q_{k}R_{k}}}}}$where p and r are vectors and are determined by the scheduler control214 as follows:P=Q _(k-1) ^(H) h _(k)r=h _(k) −Q _(k-1) pr=∥r∥The value r (e.g., a vector norm of vector r) may be a measurement thatrepresents a spatial orthogonality of user k relative to the spatialelement(s) of user(s) 1 to k−1 already selected to be served during thetime slot being scheduled. The scheduler control 214 can then use thevalue r to determine whether to select or not select the user to bescheduled during the time slot. The scheduler control 214 can use thevalue r to determine to select the user to be scheduled during the timeslot if the value r does satisfy the threshold Th, and can use the valuer to determine to not select the user to be scheduled during the timeslot if the value r does not satisfy the threshold Th. For example, ifthe value r is greater than the threshold Th (e.g., a measurement thatrepresents a spatial orthogonality of user k relative to the spatialelement(s) of user(s) 1 to k−1 already selected to be served during thetime slot being scheduled is greater than the threshold Th), then thescheduler control 214 determines that the spatial dimension of user k isroughly or approximately orthogonal to the spatial dimension(s) of otheruser(s) already selected to be served during the time slot, and thescheduler control 214 selects user k to also be served during the timeslot. In other words, the scheduler control 214 can update H_(s) to beas follows:H _(s)=[H _(s) h _(k)]Otherwise, if the value r is less than or equal to the threshold Th(e.g., a measurement that represents a spatial orthogonality of user krelative to the spatial element(s) of user(s) 1 to k−1 (e.g., user(s)that have DL channel state information represented within H_(s)) alreadyselected to be served during the time slot being scheduled is less thanor equal to the threshold Th), then the scheduler control 214 determinesthat the spatial dimension of user k is not roughly or approximatelyorthogonal to the spatial dimension(s) of other user(s) already selectedto be served during the time slot and declines to select user k to alsobe served during the time slot. After selecting or not selecting user kto be served during the time slot, the scheduler controller 214determines whether k equals K_(r). If k equals K_(r) or the maximumnumber of users that can be scheduled during the time slot are scheduled(e.g., where the maximum number of users that can be scheduled duringthe time slot is equal to or less than the total number of spatialdimensions or total number of transmit antennas provided by the RRUs104A-104N), the scheduler control 214 has completed the QR decompositionand user selection process. Otherwise, if k is less than K_(r) and themaximum number of users that can be scheduled during the time slot arenot scheduled, the scheduler control 214 repeats the QR decompositionand user selection process for user k+1.

Thus, the scheduler control 214 can perform the operations describedherein to select users with low complexity. For example, the QRdecomposition process may ensure that the condition number of H_(s) isapproximately controlled by the threshold Th with low complexity. WhenH_(s) has a reasonably good condition number (e.g., a very small valueclose to 0, such as 1, 0.1, 0.05, 0.01, etc.), the matrix inversion maynot put too much transmitting power on weak Eigen directions thatusually have more parameter estimation errors. Thus, this process mayboost the robustness of the network environment 100 and reduce variousestimation errors.

After repeating the QR decomposition and user selection process untileither the maximum number of users that can be scheduled during the timeslot are scheduled or all users have been evaluated, the schedulercontrol 214, another component of the BBU 110, and/or one or more RRUs104A-104N can compute the DL precoder (e.g., the downlink regularizedzero forcing (RZF) precoder). The scheduler control 214, the othercomponent of the BBU 110, and/or one or more RRUs 104A-104N can use anidentification of the selected users, estimated DL channel informationfor the selected users, and/or QR decompositions of the selected usersto determine the DL precoder. In particular, the scheduler control 214can output H_(s), an identification of the selected users (e.g., K_(s)),and the QR decompositions of the selected users (e.g., Q_(s) and R_(s))for use by another component if the scheduler control 214 itself doesnot compute the DL precoder.

For example, the DL precoder computation can be representedmathematically as follows:P _(RZF_sel) =H _(s)·(H _(s) ^(H) ·H _(s)+Λ)⁻¹ =H _(s)·(R _(s) ^(H) ·R_(s)+Λ)⁻¹where P_(RZF_sel) represents the DL precoder, and A represents adiagonal loading matrix.

After the users are selected for a time slot, the RRU(s) 104A-104N thatserve a particular UE 102A-102K (or UE 102A-102K receive antenna) duringthe time slot can each transmit the same downlink data to the UE102A-102K (or UE 102A-102K receive antenna) during the time slot usingone or more spatial beams. The UE 102A-102K can then combine thereceived data (e.g., by selecting the best spatial beam, by performing asoft combine, by performing a non-coherent combine, by performing acoherent combine, etc.) and perform any corresponding operations.

As described herein, the scheduler control 214 can use the userselection for UL transmissions as well, or can separately select usersfor UL transmissions. If the scheduler control 214 selects usersseparately for UL transmissions, the scheduler control 214 can selectusers for a particular frequency wholeband or sub-band. The schedulercontrol 214 can perform the same operations described above to select aparticular user and spatial dimension grouping to serve during the sametime slot. However, the scheduler control 214 may not need to determineany DL channel state information. Rather, the scheduler control 214 cansimply use the UL channel state information obtained from the channelstate data store 230, and the UL channel state information can besubstituted for the DL channel state information in any computationsperformed by the scheduler control 214. Thus, for each user, thescheduler control 214 can determine a matrix or vector of UL channelstate information, where each element in the matrix or vectorcorresponds to a particular spatial dimension (e.g., an RRU 104A-104Nreceive antenna) and a UE 102A-102K transmit antenna (e.g., a transmitantenna of the respective user). In other words, RRU 104A-104N receiveantennas and UE 102A-102K transmit antennas may be evaluated for ULscheduling rather than RRU 104A-104N transmit antennas and UE 102A-102Kreceive antennas. In addition, the BLER performance that may be used todetermine the constant may be the BLER performance of one or more RRUs104A-104N receive antennas rather than of one or more UE 102A-102Kreceive antennas. Furthermore, the scheduler control 214 may notnecessarily compute a precoder after selecting the users to serve duringthe time slot being scheduled for UL transmissions. However, thescheduler control 214 may compute receiver beamforming weights so thatone or more RRUs 104A-104N can receive data from multiple UEs 102A-102Ksimultaneously.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating a cooperative MIMO wirelessnetwork 300 that includes the BBU 110 according to an embodiment. Inthis embodiment, the RRUs 104A-104N may operate as RRUs or servingnodes, and the BBU 110 may select users (e.g., UEs 102, UE 102 receiveantennas, etc.) to be served by one or more RRUs 104A-104N during thesame time slot allocated for DL or UL transmissions over one or morespatial dimensions, and/or schedule data transmissions over the spatialdimension(s) selected to serve the users.

As illustrated in FIG. 3, the baseband unit 110 includes user data TXbuffers 212, the scheduler control 214, a time/frequency resourceallocation block 316, an active set and beam management block 318, atransceiver 320, a CSI computation block 322, an active set serving nodeupdate block 324, and the channel state data store 230. The BBU 110 caninclude any suitable physical hardware to implement the illustratedblocks. For example, the BBU 110 can include a processor and computerreadable storage to implement any suitable blocks shown in FIG. 3. Thecooperative MIMO wireless network 300 also includes the RRUs 104A-104Nand one or more UEs 102. The cooperative MIMO wireless network 300optionally includes other RRUs 104, not shown.

The BBU 110 includes a scheduler that selects users to serve over one ormore spatial dimensions during the same time slot and schedules userdata for wireless transmission between the RRUs 104A-104N and UEs 102over various spatial dimensions (e.g., spatial beams, channels, etc.).The scheduler can perform the QR decomposition and user selectionprocess described herein to select users to serve during the same timeslot. The scheduler can also schedule DL data traffic for simultaneoustransmission to multiple UEs 102, can schedule DL data traffic in a timedivision multiplexed fashion such that DL data traffic is transmitted toone UE 102 during a first time slot and is transmitted to a second UE102 during a second time slot after (or before) the first time slot, canschedule UL data traffic for simultaneous transmission by multiple UEs102, and can schedule UL data traffic in a time division multiplexedfashion such that UL data traffic is transmitted by one UE 102 during afirst time slot and is transmitted by a second UE 102 during a secondtime slot after (or before) the first time slot. The RRUs 104 canalternatively be referred to as transmission points for DL datatransmission. The scheduler can schedule data from any suitable numberof RRUs 104 to any suitable number of UEs 102. The scheduler can includethe user data queue TX buffers 212, the scheduler control 214, thetime/frequency resource allocation block 316, the active set and beammanagement block 318, the CSI computation block 322, the active setserving node update block 324, and/or the channel state data store 230.

The transceiver 320 can provide a UE report from the UE 102 to thescheduler. For example, the UE report can include spatial beam linkstrengths, spatial beam link quality, and/or other CSI suitable forallowing the scheduler to select users to be served over one or morespatial dimensions during the same time slot, schedule DL datatransmissions, and/or schedule UL data transmissions. The CSIcomputation block 322 can compute CSI data from data in the UE report.The active set serving node update block 324 can determine an updatedactive set for one or more UEs 102 based on updated link strengthinformation provided by the UE(s) 102 (e.g., provided by the UE(s) 102in response to receiving DL data traffic) and/or by executing the QRdecomposition and user selection process described herein. In someinstances, the active set serving node update block 324 can determine anupdated active set for a subset of one or more antennas of a UE 102. Theactive set serving node update block 324 can use any suitable metricsdisclosed herein to update an active set associated with a UE 102.

The updated active set data is provided to the scheduler control 214.The user data queue TX buffers 212 can provide user data (e.g., DL userdata) to the scheduler control 214. The scheduler control 214 providesuser data to the transceiver 320 and also provides instructions to thetime/frequency resource allocation block 316. The time/frequencyresource allocation block 316 can schedule timing and frequency of DLand/or UL data transmission from and/or to RRUs 104 (e.g., generatescheduling data), which can be forwarded to the RRUs 104 via thetransceiver 320. This can avoid timing conflicts and conflicts in thefrequency domain. The active set and beam management block 318 canselect RRUs 104 and/or specific spatial beams offered by these RRUs 104for providing wireless transmission services to UEs 102, and createcorresponding active sets for the UEs 102. The active set and beammanagement block 318 can group DL data transmissions and managebeamforming from the RRUs 104 to the UEs 102. The transceiver 320provides data for transmission by the RRUs 104 to UEs 102.

As illustrated in FIG. 3, the scheduler can cause a network system ofthe cooperative MIMO wireless network 300 to wirelessly transmit firstuser data to a first UE 102 across one or more spatial beams or spatialdimensions, to transmit second user data to a second UE 102 across oneor more spatial beams or spatial dimensions, and so on. The schedulercan cause the transmissions of the first user data, the second userdata, etc. to occur simultaneously and/or at different times. Moreover,the scheduler can cause a network system of the cooperative MIMOwireless network 300 to wirelessly transmit user data to any suitablenumber of UEs 102 across one or more spatial beams or spatial dimensionsserved by one or more RRUs 104.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram depicting a UE selection routine 400illustratively implemented by an RRU and/or a BBU to select which usersto serve during the same time slot, according to one embodiment. As anexample, one or more RRUs 104A-104N of FIGS. 1 and 3, RRU 990 of FIG. 9,the BBU 110 of FIGS. 1-3, and/or BBU 902 of FIG. 9 can be configured toexecute the UE selection routine 400. For simplicity and ease ofexplanation, the UE selection routine 400 is described with respect to a“user” being a UE 102 receive antenna and for DL transmissions. However,the UE selection routine 400 can also be performed in situations inwhich a “user” is an entire UE 102 (e.g., by having variable ireferencing a UE rather than a receive antenna and/or replacing “RXantenna” with “UE” in the process described below). The UE selectionroutine 400 can also be performed for UL transmissions, with the “user”being a UE 102 transmit antenna (e.g., by having variable i referencinga UE 102 transmit antenna and having variable j referencing an RRU 104receive antenna and/or replacing “RX antenna” with “TX antenna” andreplacing “TX antenna” with “RX antenna” in the process described below)or the entire UE 102 (e.g., by having variable i referencing a UE 102rather than an antenna and having variable j referencing an RRU 104receive antenna and/or replacing “RX antenna” with “UE” and replacing“TX antenna” with “RX antenna” in the process described below). The UEselection routine 400 begins at block 402 and is executed for selectingusers to serve during the same time slot.

At block 404, a variable K is set equal to a number of receive (RX)antennas present in the network environment, and a variable N is setequal to a number of transmit (TX) antennas present in the networkenvironment. The number of RX antennas may be the total number of RXantennas collectively provided by the UEs 102 in the networkenvironment, and the number of TX antennas may be the total number of TXantennas collectively provided by the RRUs 104 in the networkenvironment. More generally, the variable N can be set to the totalnumber of spatial dimensions collectively provided by the RRUs 104 inthe network environment. The variable N may represent the maximum numberof users (e.g., UE 102 RX antennas) that can be selected to be servedduring the time slot being scheduled.

At block 406, a variable i is set equal to 1, and a variable j is setequal to 1. Variable i may identify a particular RX antenna, andvariable j may identify a particular TX antenna.

At block 408, channel information is determined for a channel between RXantenna i and TX antenna j. For example, the channel information may beDL channel state information (e.g., DL channel coefficients) for thechannel, and can be derived from UL channel state information obtainedfrom, for example, the channel state data store 230.

At block 410, a determination is made as to whether the variable jequals the variable N. If the two variables are equal, this may indicatethat channel information has been determined for each channel betweenthe RX antenna i and the TX antennas in the network environment. Thus,the UE selection routine 400 then proceeds to block 414. Otherwise, ifthe two variables are not equal, this may indicate that channelinformation has not been determined for each channel between the RXantenna i and the TX antennas in the network environment. Thus, the UEselection routine 400 then proceeds to block 412.

At block 412, the variable j is incremented by 1. After incrementing thevariable j, the UE selection routine 400 reverts back to block 408 soadditional channel information can be determined.

At block 414, a determination is made as to whether variable i equalsvariable K. If the two variables are equal, this may indicate thatchannel information has been determined for each pair of RX antennas andTX antennas in the network environment. Thus, the UE selection routine400 then proceeds to block 418. Otherwise, if the two variables are notequal, this may indicate that channel information has not beendetermined for each pair of RX antennas and TX antennas in the networkenvironment. Thus, the UE selection routine 400 then proceeds to block416.

At block 416, the variable i is incremented by 1 and the variable j isreset to 1. After incrementing the variable i and resetting the variablej, the UE selection routine 400 reverts back to block 408 so additionalchannel information can be determined.

At block 418, the variable i is reset to 1. After resetting the variablei, the UE selection routine 400 proceeds to block 420.

At block 420, channel strength for each RX antenna is determined. Forexample, the channel strength can be determined for an RX antenna bytaking a vector norm of a vector of channel information associated withthe RX antenna.

At block 422, the RX antennas are ordered based on the determinedchannel strength. For example, the RX antennas can be ordered based on afairness metric determined using the determined channel strength andaverage or normalized throughput.

At block 424, a threshold Th is determined. For example, the thresholdTh may be based on the highest vector norm and/or a constant value thatmay or may not remain static.

At block 426, a QR decomposition of RX antenna i is determined. Forexample, variable i may initially be set to 1 and refer to the highestordered RX antenna. Each next highest value of the variable i may referto the next lower ordered RX antenna. As an illustrative example, if thevariable i is equal to 2, the variable i may refer to the second highestordered RX antenna. If the variable i is equal to 3, the variable i mayrefer to the third highest ordered RX antenna, and so on.

At block 428, a determination is made as to whether a spatial dimensionof RX antenna i is roughly or approximately orthogonal to the spatialdimension(s) of any RX antennas already selected to be served during thetime slot being scheduled. For example, the norm of a vector rdetermined using the QR decomposition of RX antenna i can be compared tothe threshold Th. If the norm of the vector r is greater than thethreshold Th, then the spatial dimension of RX antenna i is roughly orapproximately orthogonal to the spatial dimension(s) of any RX antennasalready selected to be served during the time slot being scheduled.Here, the spatial dimension of RX antenna 1 is roughly or approximatelyorthogonal given that no other RX antennas have yet to be selected to beserved during the time slot being scheduled. If the spatial dimension ofRX antenna i is roughly or approximately orthogonal to the spatialdimension(s) of any RX antennas already selected to be served during thetime slot being scheduled, then the UE selection routine 400 proceeds toblock 434. Otherwise, if the spatial dimension of RX antenna i is notroughly or approximately orthogonal to the spatial dimension(s) of anyRX antennas already selected to be served during the time slot beingscheduled, then the UE selection routine 400 proceeds to block 430.

At block 430, a determination is made as to whether variable i equalsvariable K. If the two variables are equal, this may indicate that allRX antennas have been evaluated for possible selection. Thus, the UEselection routine 400 then proceeds to block 442 and the UE selectionroutine 400 is complete. Otherwise, if the two variables are not equal,this may indicate that not all of the RX antennas have been evaluatedfor possible selection and additional RX antennas could be selected.Thus, the UE selection routine 400 then proceeds to block 432.

At block 432, the variable i is incremented by 1. After incrementing thevariable i, the UE selection routine 400 reverts back to block 426 soanother QR decomposition can be performed to determine whether anotherRX antenna can be selected to be served during the time slot beingscheduled.

At block 434, the RX antenna i is added to subspace H_(s), which is adata structure identifying the RX antennas that have been selected to beserved during the time slot being scheduled (and which stores channelinformation for each of the selected RX antennas). In other words, theRX antenna i is selected to be served during the time slot beingscheduled given that the spatial dimension of RX antenna is roughly orapproximately orthogonal to the spatial dimension(s) of other RXantennas already selected.

At block 436, a determination is made as to whether the size of subspaceH_(s) equals the variable N. If the size of subspace H_(s) equalsvariable N, this may indicate that the maximum number of RX antennashave been selected and no more RX antennas can be selected to be servedduring the time slot being scheduled. Thus, the UE selection routine 400then proceeds to block 442 and the UE selection routine 400 is complete.Otherwise, if the size of subspace H_(s) does not equal variable N, thismay indicate that additional RX antennas could be selected to be servedduring the time slot being scheduled. Thus, the UE selection routine 400then proceeds to block 438.

At block 438, a determination is made as to whether variable i equalsvariable K. If the two variables are equal, this may indicate that allRX antennas have been evaluated for possible selection. Thus, the UEselection routine 400 then proceeds to block 442 and the UE selectionroutine 400 is complete. Otherwise, if the two variables are not equal,this may indicate that not all of the RX antennas have been evaluatedfor possible selection and additional RX antennas could be selected.Thus, the UE selection routine 400 then proceeds to block 440.

At block 440, the variable i is incremented by 1. After incrementing thevariable i, the UE selection routine 400 reverts back to block 426 soanother QR decomposition can be performed to determine whether anotherRX antenna can be selected to be served during the time slot beingscheduled.

FIGS. 5A-5B are diagrams illustrated an example selection of UEs 102 tobe served during the same time slot, according to an embodiment. FIGS.5A-5B illustrate the selection process for DL communications. However,the same techniques can be applied to make selections for ULcommunications. Furthermore, FIGS. 5A-5B illustrate the selectionprocess with “users” being UEs 102. However, the same techniques can beapplied to make selections with “users” being UE 102 receive antennas.

As illustrated in FIG. 5A, eleven active UEs 102A-102K are present inthe network environment, and eight RRUs 104A-104H are present in thenetwork environment. Assuming that each of the RRUs 104A-104H has onetransmit antenna, the total number of active UEs 102A-102K that can beserved during the same time slot is eight (e.g., the total number ofRRUs 104A-104H multiplied by the number of transit antennas that eachRRU 104A-104H has). Because there are more active UEs 102A-102K presentin the network environment than can be served during the same time slot,the BBU 110 can perform the QR decomposition described herein toidentify which UEs 102A-102K, if any, can be served during the same timeslot.

Here, the BBU 110 selects active UEs 102A, 102D, 102E, 102H, 102J, and102K to be served during the same time slot, as illustrated in FIG. 5B.While the BBU 110 could have selected up to eight UEs 102A-102K to servesimultaneously during the same time slot, the BBU 110 has determinedthat only six UEs 102 are associated with spatial dimensions that areroughly or approximately orthogonal with each other. Thus, the BBU 110has selected fewer than eight UEs 102A-102K to serve simultaneouslyduring the same time slot.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram depicting a user selection routine 600 for DLtransmissions based on a threshold illustratively implemented by a BBUand/or one or more RRUs, according to one embodiment. As an example, theBBU 110 or 902 and/or one or more RRUs 104 or 990 can be configured toexecute the user selection routine 600. The user selection routine 600begins at block 602.

At block 602, estimated downlink channel information is obtained forchannels between UE RX antenna elements and base station (e.g., RRU) TXantenna elements. For example, the estimated DL channel information canbe obtained using UL channel information obtained from UL pilot signals.The estimated downlink channel information is optionally subject to ascaling correct as a result of calibration between DL and UL RF chains.

At block 604, a threshold value is determined based on at least theestimated downlink channel information. For example, matrix or vectornorms can be computed using the estimated downlink channel information(e.g., representing channel strength), and the threshold value can bebased on a product of a constant value and the highest computed matrixor vector norm. The constant value can be the same for all UEs or UE RXantenna elements, can be different for some or all of the UEs or UE RXantenna elements, and/or can be adjusted over time based on, forexample, BLER performance of one or more UE RX antenna elements.

At block 606, a first RX antenna element is selected to be served by oneor more of the TX antenna elements if a representation of a spatialorthogonality of the first RX antenna element relative to spatialelement(s) of other RX antenna element(s) already selected to be servedduring the time slot is greater than the threshold value. For example,the QR decomposition of the first RX antenna element can be computed. Aspart of the computation, a vector r can be determined, and a norm of thevector r can be the representation of the spatial orthogonality of thefirst RX antenna element relative to spatial element(s) of other RXantenna element(s) already selected to be served during the time slot.If the representation of the spatial orthogonality of the first RXantenna relative to spatial element(s) of other RX antenna element(s)already selected to be served during the time slot is greater than thethreshold value, this may indicate that the spatial dimension of thefirst RX antenna is roughly or approximately orthogonal to the spatialdimension(s) of other RX antennas already selected to be served duringthe time slot being scheduled.

FIG. 7 is a flow diagram depicting a user selection routine 700 for DLtransmissions illustratively implemented by a BBU and/or one or moreRRUs, according to one embodiment. As an example, the BBU 110 or 902and/or one or more RRUs 104 or 990 can be configured to execute the userselection routine 700. The user selection routine 700 begins at block702.

At block 702, downlink channel information is determined for channelsbetween UE RX antenna elements and base station (e.g., RRU) TX antennaelements. For example, the DL channel information can be determinedusing UL channel information obtained from UL pilot signals.

At block 704, for each RX antenna element, a channel strength isdetermined based on the downlink channel information. For example,matrix or vector norms can be computed using the downlink channelinformation to determine channel strengths for each of the RX antennaelements.

At block 706, the RX antenna elements can be ordered based on thedetermined channel strengths. For example, a fairness metric can bedetermined for each RX antenna element based on the channel strength ofthe respective RX antenna element and an average or normalizedthroughput of the respective RX antenna element. The RX antenna elementscan then be ordered based on the value of their fairness metrics, withthe RX antenna element having the highest fairness metric being orderedfirst and the RX antenna element having the lowest fairness metric beingordered last.

At block 708, in order from highest-ordered RX antenna element tolowest-ordered RX antenna element, the respective RX antenna element canbe optionally selected to be served by one or more TX antenna elementsbased on whether a measurement that represents a spatial orthogonalityof the respective RX antenna element with RX antenna elements already ina scheduled set (e.g., a spatial orthogonality of the respective RXantenna element relative to spatial element(s) of other RX antennaelements already selected to be served during the time slot) is greaterthan a threshold value (where the threshold value can be the thresholdTh). For example, the QR decomposition of the RX antenna elements can becomputed and used to determine a measurement that represents a spatialorthogonality of an RX antenna element with RX antenna elements alreadyin a scheduled set (e.g., value r). The measurement can then be comparedto the threshold value, where a spatial dimension of the respective RXantenna element is orthogonal to the spatial dimensions of RX antennaelements already selected to be served if the measurement is greaterthan the threshold value.

FIG. 8 is a flow diagram depicting a user selection routine 800 for ULtransmissions illustratively implemented by a BBU and/or one or moreRRUs, according to one embodiment. As an example, the BBU 110 or 902and/or one or more RRUs 104 or 990 can be configured to execute the userselection routine 800. The user selection routine 800 begins at block802.

At block 802, uplink channel information is obtained for channelsbetween base station (e.g., RRU) RX antenna elements and UE TX antennaelements. For example, the UL channel information can be obtained fromUL pilot signals.

At block 804, for each TX antenna element, a channel strength isdetermined based on the uplink channel information. For example, matrixor vector norms can be computed using the uplink channel information todetermine channel strengths for each of the TX antenna elements.

At block 806, the TX antenna elements can be ordered based on thedetermined channel strengths. For example, a fairness metric can bedetermined for each TX antenna element based on the channel strength ofthe respective TX antenna element and an average or normalizedthroughput of the respective TX antenna element. The TX antenna elementscan then be ordered based on the value of their fairness metrics, withthe TX antenna element having the highest fairness metric being orderedfirst and the TX antenna element having the lowest fairness metric beingordered last.

At block 808, in order from highest-ordered TX antenna element tolowest-ordered TX antenna element, the respective TX antenna element canbe optionally selected to communicate with one or more RX antennaelements based on whether a measurement that represents a spatialorthogonality of the respective TX antenna element with TX antennaelements already in a scheduled set (e.g., a spatial orthogonality ofthe respective TX antenna element relative to spatial element(s) ofother TX antenna elements already selected to communicate during thetime slot) is greater than a threshold value (where the threshold valuecan be the threshold Th). For example, the QR decomposition of the TXantenna elements can be computed and used to determine a measurementthat represents a spatial orthogonality of a TX antenna element with TXantenna elements already in a scheduled set (e.g., value r). Themeasurement can then be compared to the threshold value, where a spatialdimension of the respective TX antenna element is orthogonal to thespatial dimensions of TX antenna elements already selected tocommunicate if the measurement is greater than the threshold value.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram illustrating an example baseband unit 902 andremote radio unit 990 according to an embodiment. The baseband unit 902may be coupled with at least one remote radio unit 990. The remote radiounit 990 may include at least a first antenna 996 and a second antenna998 for MIMO wireless communications. Any antenna disclosed herein, suchas the antenna 996 or the antenna 998, can be referred to as antennaelement. The first antenna 996 and the second antenna 998 may be coupledwith a RF front end 994. The RF front end 994 may process signalsreceived via the first antenna 996 and the second antenna 998. Part ofprocessing a signal may include transmitting the signal to a transceiver920 included in the BBU 902.

A processor 905 may receive signals received by the transceiver 920. Theprocessor 905 may be configured to determine a type of the signal. Forexample, if the signal includes a request for connection services, theprocessor 905 may provide the signal to an active set selector 935. Theactive set selector 935 may be configured to identify an active set ofserving nodes to provide the requested downlink data transmissionservice. The active set selector 935 can also identify which users toschedule during the same time slot by performing QR decompositions, asdescribed herein. The active set selector 935 can identify the activeset for a UE based on information associated with the UE. Alternativelyor additionally, the active set selector 935 can identify the active setfor a UE based on information associated with one or more other UEs. Insome instances, the active set selector 935 can identify specificspatial beam(s) selected to serve a UE. The BBU 902 may include anetwork monitor 925 to detect characteristics of the network such as thenumber of UEs served by each RRU, network data transmission load, and/orthe like. The active set selector 935 may receive the networkcharacteristics from the network monitor 925 as a factor considered whenselecting spatial beam(s) to serve a UE and/or identifying an active setfor a UE.

A beamformer 915 may be included in the BBU 902 to further identifyparameters for the serving nodes (e.g., RRUs) included in an active set.The parameters may include one or more of transmission mode, time,frequency, power, beamforming matrix, tone allocation, or channel rank.The beamformer 915 may determine optimal parameters for RRUs coupledwith the BBU 902 that facilitate a network-wide optimization of downlinkdata transmissions. In some implementations, the active set selector 935determines an active set for a UE based, in part, on informationprovided by the UE. In other implementations, a UE may provide arequested active set. The BBU 902 may include an active set arbitrator930 to reconcile a requested active set with an active set selected bythe active set selector 935. The active set arbitrator 930 may compare arequested set of serving nodes to the serving nodes identified by theactive set selector 935. The comparison may include ordering the servingnodes according to the UE recommendation. In some implementations, theactive set arbitrator 930 may provide a message to the UE indicatingconfirmation or other assessment for a requested active set. Forexample, if the UE requested nodes A and B but the BBU 902 identifiedonly B in the active set, the message may include a code indicating apartial match for the active set. Other status codes may be included tofacilitate efficient communication and assessment of requested activesets. The active set arbitrator 930 may additionally or alternativelycompare a requested transmission mode to the transmission modeidentified by the active set selector 935 or other element of the BBU902.

The BBU 902 may include a data store 910. The data store 910 may includeinstructions that can be executed by the processor 905 to implement thefeatures described herein. In some implementations, the data store 910may retain active sets or other scheduling information assigned to UEsserved by the BBU 902 and/or channel state information. The data store910 may be indexed by UE identifier and/or RRU identifier. This canexpedite identification of previously communicated schedulinginformation for the UE and for monitoring network conditions (e.g.,number of UEs allocated to an RRU or antenna element of an RRU).

In addition to providing the scheduling information to the UE, thescheduling information may be used to configure the RRU 990. Theconfiguration may include adjusting the first antenna 996 such as byfrequency modulation, time modulation, altering transmission power froma power source 992, or adjusting direction, tone allocation, orbeamforming of the transmission.

As discussed above, a variety of different UEs can wirelesslycommunicate with serving nodes in a cooperative MIMO network. An exampleUE will be discussed with reference to FIG. 10.

FIG. 10 is a schematic block diagram of an example UE 1000 according toan embodiment. The UE 1000 is configured for wirelessly communicatingwith a base station in a cooperative MIMO network. As illustrated inFIG. 10, the UE 1000 includes a processor 1040, a user interface 1045, adata store 1050, a beamformer 1055, antennas 1062 and 1064, atransceiver 1065, a motion detector 1070, a signal quality analyzer1075, and an active set selector 1080. Some other UEs can includeadditional elements and/or a subset of the elements illustrated in FIG.10.

The UE 1000 includes a plurality of antennas 1062 and 1064. Any suitablenumber of antennas can be included for wireless communication. The UE1000 can include one or more arrays of antennas. A radio frequency (RF)front end 1060 can process RF signals received via the antennas 1062 and1064. The RF front end can also provide RF signals to the antennas 1062and 1064 for transmission. The transceiver 965 includes a transmitterand a receiver. The transceiver 1065 can provide processing fortransmitting and receiving RF signals associated with the antennas 1062and 1064. For example, upon receiving active set data, the processor1040 can configure the transceiver 1065 (e.g., receiver) to receive DLdata associated with the spatial beam(s) identified in the active setdata as being selected to serve the UE 1000.

The processor 1040 is in communication with the transceiver 1065. Theprocessor 1040 is implemented by physical hardware arranged to performspecific operations to implement functionality related to determining alink strength of spatial beams over which beam pilots and/or user dataare transmitted. The processor 1040 can determine the link strength,identify a spatial beam that provides the best link strength, and/orgenerate one or more messages to report the link strength to a servingnode in accordance with any suitable principles and advantages disclosedherein. The processor 1040 can cause active set and neighbor set data tobe stored and updated. The processor 1040 can perform any other suitableprocessing for the UE 1000.

The processor 1040 can be in communication with the motion detector 1070and the signal quality analyzer 1075. Accordingly, the processor 1040can receive and process information associated with conditions of the UE1000. The motion detector 1070 can include any suitable hardwarearranged to detect mobility information associated with the UE 1000. Thesignal quality analyzer 1075 can analyze the quality of signals receivedand/or transmitted by the antennas 1062 and 1064. This can provideinformation associated with a spatial channel condition of the UE 1000.The information associated with conditions of the UE 1000 can beprovided to the processor 1040 for providing to the serving node(s). Insome instances, some or all of the functionality of the motion detector1070 and/or the signal quality analyzer can be implemented by theprocessor 1040.

The active set selector 1080 is optional and can identify a desiredactive set of one or more serving nodes. The active set selector 1080can select the desired active set based on data associated with one ormore of: one or more serving nodes in the active set, one or moreserving nodes in the neighbor set, mobility data associated with the UE1000, a spatial channel condition associated with the UE 1000, the linkstrength and/or the link quality of one or more spatial beams served byone or more serving nodes, or one or more characteristics of the UE1000. The active set selector 1080 can optionally execute the active setmanagement scheme to identify a desired active set. The active setselector 1080 can cause the processor 1040 to generate a message fortransmission to a serving node and/or a BBU to request that a selectedspatial beam (or selected spatial beams) be added to an active set forthe UE 1000 (e.g., request that a selected spatial beam, which may bedifferent than the spatial beam(s) already included in an active set forthe UE 1000, be included in an updated active set for the UE 1000). Theactive set selector 1080 can be implemented by dedicated circuitryand/or circuitry of the processor 1040.

The beamformer 1055 can perform any suitable beamforming functionalityfor the UE 900. The beamformer 1055 can set and/or adjust one or moreparameters associated with receiving and/or transmitting signalsassociated with the antennas 1062 and 1064 of the UE 1000. Thebeamformer 1055 can be implemented by dedicated circuitry and/orcircuitry of the processor 1040.

The UE 1040 includes a data store 1050. The data store 1050 can storeinstructions that can be executed by the processor 1040 to implement thefeatures described herein. The data store 1050 can store active set dataand neighbor set data for the UE 1000. The data store 1050 can storespatial beam link strengths and/or link qualities. The data store 1050can store any other suitable data for the UE 1000. The data store 1050can include any suitable memory elements arranged to store data.

Several elements included in the UE 1000 may be coupled by a bus 1090.The bus 1090 can be a data bus, communication bus, other bus, or anysuitable combination thereof to enable the various components of the UE1000 to exchange information.

As illustrated in FIG. 10, the UE 1000 also includes a user interface1045. The user interface 1045 can be any suitable user interface, suchas a display and/or an audio component. In some instances, the userinterface 1045 can include one or more of touch screen capabilities, abutton, a knob, a switch, or a slider.

TERMINOLOGY, APPLICATIONS, AND CONCLUSION

Depending on the embodiment, certain acts, events, or functions of anyof the processes or algorithms described herein can be performed in adifferent sequence, can be added, merged, or left out altogether (e.g.,not all described operations or events are necessary for the practice ofthe algorithm). Moreover, in certain embodiments, operations, or eventscan be performed concurrently, e.g., through multi-threaded processing,interrupt processing, or multiple processors or processor cores or onother parallel architectures, rather than sequentially.

Conditional language used herein, such as, among others, “can,” “could,”“might,” “may,” “e.g.,” and the like, unless specifically statedotherwise, or otherwise understood within the context as used, isgenerally intended to convey that certain embodiments include, whileother embodiments do not include, certain features, elements, and/orsteps. Thus, such conditional language is not generally intended toimply that features, elements, and/or steps are in any way required forone or more embodiments or that one or more embodiments necessarilyinclude logic for deciding, with or without other input or prompting,whether these features, elements, and/or steps are included or are to beperformed in any particular embodiment. The terms “comprising,”“including,” “having,” and the like are synonymous and are usedinclusively, in an open-ended fashion, and do not exclude additionalelements, features, acts, operations, and so forth. Additionally, thewords “herein,” “above,” “below,” and words of similar import, when usedin this application, shall refer to this application as a whole and notto any particular portions of this application. Where the contextpermits, words in the above Detailed Description of Certain Embodimentsusing the singular or plural may also include the plural or singular,respectively. Also, the term “or” is used in its inclusive sense (andnot in its exclusive sense) so that when used, for example, to connect alist of elements, the term “or” means one, some, or all of the elementsin the list.

Disjunctive language such as the phrase “at least one of X, Y, Z,”unless specifically stated otherwise, is otherwise understood with thecontext as used in general to present that an item, term, etc., may beeither X, Y, or Z, or any combination thereof (e.g., X, Y, and/or Z).Thus, such disjunctive language is not generally intended to, and shouldnot, imply that certain embodiments require at least one of X, at leastone of Y, or at least one of Z to each be present.

Unless otherwise explicitly stated, articles such as “a” or “an” shouldgenerally be interpreted to include one or more described items.Accordingly, phrases such as “a device configured to” are intended toinclude one or more recited devices. Such one or more recited devicescan also be collectively configured to carry out the stated recitations.For example, “a processor configured to carry out recitations A, B andC” can include a first processor configured to carry out recitation Aworking in conjunction with a second processor configured to carry outrecitations B and C.

The word “coupled,” as generally used herein, refers to two or moreelements that may be either directly coupled to each other, or coupledby way of one or more intermediate elements. Likewise, the word“connected,” as generally used herein, refers to two or more elementsthat may be either directly connected, or connected by way of one ormore intermediate elements.

As used herein, the terms “determine” or “determining” encompass a widevariety of actions. For example, “determining” may include calculating,computing, processing, deriving, generating, obtaining, looking up(e.g., looking up in a table, a database or another data structure),ascertaining and the like via a hardware element without userintervention. Also, “determining” may include receiving (e.g., receivinginformation), accessing (e.g., accessing data in a memory) and the likevia a hardware element without user intervention. Also, “determining”may include resolving, selecting, choosing, establishing, and the likevia a hardware element without user intervention.

As used herein, the terms “provide” or “providing” encompass a widevariety of actions. For example, “providing” may include storing a valuein a location of a storage device for subsequent retrieval, transmittinga value directly to the recipient via at least one wired or wirelesscommunication medium, transmitting or storing a reference to a value,and the like. “Providing” may also include encoding, decoding,encrypting, decrypting, validating, verifying, and the like via ahardware element.

As used herein, the term “message” encompasses a wide variety of formatsfor communicating (e.g., transmitting or receiving) information. Amessage may include a machine readable aggregation of information suchas an XML document, fixed field message, comma separated message, or thelike. A message may, in some implementations, include a signal utilizedto transmit one or more representations of the information. Whilerecited in the singular, it will be understood that a message may becomposed, transmitted, stored, received, etc. in multiple parts.

As used herein a “user interface” (also referred to as an interactiveuser interface, a graphical user interface or a UI) may refer to anetwork based interface including data fields and/or other controls forreceiving input signals or providing electronic information and/or forproviding information to the user in response to any received inputsignals. A UI may be implemented in whole or in part using technologiessuch as hyper-text mark-up language (HTML), Flash, Java, .net, webservices, and rich site summary (RSS). In some implementations, a UI maybe included in a stand-alone client (for example, thick client, fatclient) configured to communicate (e.g., send or receive data) inaccordance with one or more of the aspects described.

As used herein a “transmit-receive point” (TRP) (which can alternativelybe referred to as a transmission reception point) may refer to atransceiver device or one transceiver element included in a device. Whenincluded as a transceiver element, the device may include multiple TRPs.The TRP may include one or more antennas which are coupled to signalprocessing circuitry. The signal processing circuitry may be included inthe device. The TRP may include additional elements to facilitatetransmission or receipt of wireless signals for one or more UEs. Exampleof such elements may include a power source, amplifier,digital-to-analog converter, analog-to-digital converter, or the like.When a TRP is allocated, such as by a BBU, to provide service to a UE,the TRP may be said to be a “serving node” for the UE.

As used herein a “remote radio unit” (RRU) may refer to a device forcontrolling and coordinating transmission and receipt of wirelesssignals for one or more UEs. An RRU may include or be coupled with oneor more TRPs. The RRU may receive signals from the TRP and include thesignal processing circuitry. The signal processing circuitry may beselectively operated to facilitate processing of signals associated withdifferent TRPs.

While the above detailed description has shown, described, and pointedout novel features as applied to various embodiments, it can beunderstood that various omissions, substitutions, and changes in theform and details of the devices or algorithms illustrated can be madewithout departing from the spirit of the disclosure. For example,circuit blocks and/or method blocks described herein may be deleted,moved, added, subdivided, combined, arranged in a different order,and/or modified. Each of these blocks may be implemented in a variety ofdifferent ways. Any portion of any of the methods disclosed herein canbe performed in association with specific instructions stored on anon-transitory computer readable storage medium being executed by one ormore processors. As can be recognized, certain embodiments describedherein can be embodied within a form that does not provide all of thefeatures and benefits set forth herein, as some features can be used orpracticed separately from others. The scope of certain embodimentsdisclosed herein is indicated by the appended claims rather than by theforegoing description. All changes which come within the meaning andrange of equivalency of the claims are to be embraced within theirscope.

What is claimed is:
 1. A network system comprising: a plurality of firstantenna elements of one or more first devices; and a scheduler incommunication with the plurality of first antenna elements, thescheduler comprising a processor and computer-executable instructions,wherein the computer-executable instructions, when executed by theprocessor, cause the scheduler to: determine channel information forchannels between a plurality of second antenna elements associated withone or more second devices and the plurality of first antenna elements;determine, for each second antenna element in the plurality of secondantenna elements, a channel strength based on the channel information;and for each second antenna element in the plurality of second antennaelements in an order based on the determined channel strengths, selectthe respective second antenna element to communicate with one or more ofthe plurality of first antenna elements during a first time slot inresponse to a determination that a measurement satisfies a thresholdvalue, wherein the measurement is derived from a characteristic of therespective second antenna element and one or more characteristics of oneor more other second antenna elements in the plurality of second antennaelements selected to communicate with one or more of the plurality offirst antenna elements.
 2. The network system of claim 1, wherein thecomputer-executable instructions, when executed, further cause thescheduler to determine the threshold value based on channel coefficientsof a channel associated with a second antenna element in the pluralityof second antenna elements determined based on the determined channelstrengths.
 3. The network system of claim 2, wherein thecomputer-executable instructions, when executed, further cause thescheduler to determine the threshold value based on a constant valuethat is the same for all second antenna elements in the plurality ofsecond antenna elements.
 4. The network system of claim 2, wherein thecomputer-executable instructions, when executed, further cause thescheduler to periodically determine the threshold value based on aconstant value that changes based on a block error rate performanceassociated with at least one second antenna element in the plurality ofsecond antenna elements.
 5. The network system of claim 2, wherein thecomputer-executable instructions, when executed, further cause thescheduler to determine the threshold value based on a constant valuethat is different for second antenna elements in the plurality of secondantenna elements.
 6. The network system of claim 5, wherein the constantvalue for one second antenna element in the plurality of second antennaelements is based on interference between the one second antenna elementand one or more other second antenna elements in the plurality of secondantenna elements.
 7. The network system of claim 1, wherein thecomputer-executable instructions, when executed, further cause thescheduler to: acquire second channel information for the channels; anddetermine the channel information using the acquired second channelinformation.
 8. The network system of claim 1, wherein the order isbased on at least one of the determined channel strengths, latencypriority, spectral efficiency, average throughput of the plurality ofsecond antenna elements over a threshold period of time, or normalizedthroughput of the plurality of second antenna elements over thethreshold period of time.
 9. The network system of claim 1, wherein thecomputer-executable instructions, when executed, further cause thescheduler to determine a channel precoder for the selected secondantenna elements.
 10. The network system of claim 1, wherein thecomputer-executable instructions, when executed, further cause thescheduler to select the respective second antenna element to communicatewith one or more of the plurality of first antenna elements for one of aresource block, two or more resource blocks, or a frequency band of acarrier.
 11. The network system of claim , wherein thecomputer-executable instructions, when executed, further cause thescheduler to determine the channel information for the channels based onone or more pilot signals.
 12. A computer-implemented method comprising:determining channel information for channels between a plurality offirst antenna elements associated with one or more first devices and aplurality of second antenna elements associated with one or more seconddevices; determining, for each first antenna element in the plurality offirst antenna elements, a channel strength based on the channelinformation; and for each first antenna element in the plurality offirst antenna elements in an order based on the determined channelstrengths, selecting the respective first antenna element to communicatewith one or more of the plurality of second antenna elements during afirst time slot in response to a determination that a measurementsatisfies a threshold value, wherein the measurement is derived from acharacteristic of the respective first antenna element and one or morecharacteristics of one or more other first antenna elements in theplurality of first antenna elements selected to communicate with one ormore of the plurality of second antenna elements.
 13. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 12, further comprising determiningthe threshold value based on channel coefficients of a channelassociated with a first antenna element in the plurality of firstantenna elements determined based on the determined channel strengths.14. The computer-implemented method of claim 13, wherein determining thethreshold value further comprises determining the threshold value basedon a constant value that is the same for all first antenna elements inthe plurality of first antenna elements.
 15. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 13, wherein determining the threshold value furthercomprises periodically determining the threshold value based on aconstant value that changes based on a block error rate performanceassociated with at least one first antenna element in the plurality offirst antenna elements.
 16. The computer-implemented method of claim 13,wherein determining the threshold value further comprises determiningthe threshold value based on a constant value that is different forfirst antenna elements in the plurality of first antenna elements. 17.The computer-implemented method of claim 16, wherein the constant valuefor one first antenna element in the plurality of first antenna elementsis based on interference between the one first antenna element and oneor more other first antenna elements in the plurality of first antennaelements.
 18. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein theorder is based on at least one of the determined channel strengths,latency priority, spectral efficiency, average throughput of theplurality of first antenna elements over a threshold period of time, ornormalized throughput of the plurality of first antenna elements overthe threshold period of time.
 19. Non-transitory, computer-readablestorage media comprising computer-executable instructions, wherein thecomputer-executable instructions, when executed by a scheduler in abaseband unit, cause the baseband unit to: determine channel informationfor channels between a plurality of first antenna elements associatedwith one or more first devices and a plurality of second antennaelements associated with one or more second devices; determine, for eachfirst antenna element in the plurality of first antenna elements, achannel strength based on the channel information; and for each firstantenna element in the plurality of first antenna elements in an orderbased on the determined channel strengths, select the respective firstantenna element to communicate with one or more of the plurality ofsecond antenna elements during a first time slot in response to adetermination that a measurement satisfies a threshold value, whereinthe measurement is derived from a characteristic of the respective firstantenna element and one or more characteristics of one or more otherfirst antenna elements in the plurality of first antenna elementsselected to communicate with one or more of the plurality of secondantenna elements.
 20. The non-transitory, computer-readable storagemedia of claim 19, wherein the computer-executable instructions, whenexecuted, further cause the baseband unit to periodically determine thethreshold value based on a constant value that changes based on a blockerror rate performance associated with at least one first antennaelement in the plurality of first antenna elements.